Stargazing Dreams

Stargazing Dreams "To the people who look at the stars & wish. To the stars who listen and the dreams that are answered." Ad Astra, Per Aspera 🌠🌌✨️🌟

Webb and Hubble: IC 5332Explanation: What does the universe look like through infrared goggles? Our eyes can only see vi...
01/03/2026

Webb and Hubble: IC 5332

Explanation: What does the universe look like through infrared goggles? Our eyes can only see visible light, but astronomers want to see more. Today’s APOD shows spiral galaxy IC 5332 as seen by two NASA telescopes: Webb in mid-infrared and Hubble in ultraviolet and visible light. To toggle between the two space-based views just slide your cursor over the image (or follow this link). The Hubble image highlights the spiral arms of the galaxy separated by dark regions, whereas the Webb image reveals a finer, more tangled structure. Interstellar dust scatters and absorbs light from the stars in the galaxy, causing the dark dust lanes in the Hubble image, and then emits heat in infrared light, so dust glows in this Webb image. The Mid-InfraRed Instrument on Webb needs to operate at a chilling temperature of -266ºC (or - 447ºF), otherwise it would detect infrared radiation from the telescope itself. Combining these observations, astronomers connect the “small scale” of gas and stars to the truly large scale of galactic structure and evolution.

Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST and PHANGS-HST Teams
Text: Cecilia Chirenti (NASA GSFC, UMCP, CRESST II)

Centaurus A is the fifth brightest galaxy in the sky -- making it an ideal target for amateur astronomers -- and is famo...
01/03/2026

Centaurus A is the fifth brightest galaxy in the sky -- making it an ideal target for amateur astronomers -- and is famous for the dust lane across its middle and a giant jet blasting away from the supermassive black hole at its center. Cen A is an active galaxy about 12 million light years from Earth. This 2014 X-ray image comes from a collaboration that combines data from amateur astronomers with data from mission archives of the NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; Optical: Rolf Olsen; Infrared: NASA/JPL-Caltech

One is an infrared image of the star-forming region known as W39 from our retired WISE (Wide-Field Infrared Explorer) an...
01/03/2026

One is an infrared image of the star-forming region known as W39 from our retired WISE (Wide-Field Infrared Explorer) and Spitzer space telescopes. In the center is a giant bubble that has been carved out of cosmic dust by massive stars. As bubbles like this push outward, they can trigger further star formation, including massive stars that can blow their own smaller bubbles within the larger bubble! Two such smaller bubbles can be seen here in yellow on the rim of the larger bubble.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Wisconsin

Image description: The W39 star-forming region appears in shades of green, red, and yellow on a black starry background. A rough egg shape dominates the center of the image, outlined by red clouds that are thick on the top and sides but barely visible along the bottom. Surrounding this is a line of yellow and green clouds that just hug the red oval on the left but then widen out to fill the image on the right. Several bright white and red spots dot the image, with two prominent ones lying on the edge of the large red oval.

01/03/2026

AI has revealed 800 never-seen-before cosmic anomalies 🌌

Our researchers developed an AI tool that allows them to inspect millions of astronomical images in a fraction of the time it would take a human.

They developed what’s called a neural network, an AI tool that uses computers to process data and search for patterns in a way that is inspired by the human brain. Their neural network, is trained to search for and recognise rare objects like jellyfish galaxies and gravitational arcs.
The team trained their tool and demonstrated its capabilities using the Hubble Legacy Archive. They sifted through nearly 100 million image cutouts in just two and a half days, uncovering nearly 1400 anomalous objects, more than 800 of which had never been documented before.

Most of the anomalies were galaxies in the process of merging or interacting, taking on unusual shapes or trailing long tails of stars and gas. Many others were gravitational lenses, in which the gravity of a foreground galaxy bends spacetime and warps the light from a distant background galaxy into a circle or arc.

The team also discovered examples of several other rare objects such as galaxies with huge clumps of stars, jellyfish galaxies with gaseous ‘tentacles’, and planet-forming disks seen edge-on, giving them a hamburger-like or butterfly-like appearance. Perhaps most intriguing of all, there were several dozen objects that defied classification altogether.

📹
🎞️/📸 ESA/, D. O’Ryan, P. Gómez (European Space Agency), M. Zamani (ESA/Hubble) by 4.0 INT

01/03/2026

Collision Scenario for Milky Way and Andromeda Galaxy Encounter

Recent measurements from Hubble and Gaia suggest the long‑predicted merger between the Milky Way and Andromeda is less certain than once believed. Updated analyses indicate only a 50–50 chance of a direct collision within the next 10 billion years.

Credit Image: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild and R. van der Marel (STScI)
Animation Credit: NASA, ESA, Z. Levay and R. van der Marel (STScI), T. Hallas, and A. Mellinger

Strap in. We’re flying over Mars 🔴Our Mars Express spacecraft is taking you on a journey across the southern highlands o...
01/03/2026

Strap in. We’re flying over Mars 🔴

Our Mars Express spacecraft is taking you on a journey across the southern highlands of the Red Planet. Destination: Flaugergues Crater.

Our flight begins inside a vast tectonic trench — a 75-kilometre-wide graben carved as Mars’s crust pulled apart. Towering cliffs, Scylla Scopulus on one side and Charybdis Scopulus on the other, rise steeply around us.

To the left, the 150-kilometre Bakhuysen Crater comes into view.

Then, on the horizon: Flaugergues.

This ancient basin spans a staggering 240 kilometres. Its rim is broken and worn. Half of the crater floor is smooth, half rugged, with rocky terrain rising up to a kilometre high. A winding valley cuts across the interior, likely shaped by wind and lava flows over billions of years.

Swipe to see the final bird’s-eye view and the map tracing our full flight path. The blue line shows exactly where the camera travels, from start to finish.

And one more thing: This isn’t how Mars Express actually flies. The video was created using real data from the mission’s High Resolution Stereo Camera, combined with topography models to build a 3D landscape of Mars. Every second of the journey is made from 50 carefully rendered frames, with atmospheric haze added to bring the Red Planet to life.

📹 / / ; / / / MSSS; BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Acknowledgements:
- Data processing & animation: Björn Schreiner
- Image Processing Group (FU Berlin)
📸 ESA/DLR/FU Berlin & NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

01/03/2026

Strap in. We’re flying over Mars 🔴

Our Mars Express spacecraft is taking you on a journey across the southern highlands of the Red Planet. Destination: Flaugergues Crater.

Our flight begins inside a vast tectonic trench — a 75-kilometre-wide graben carved as Mars’s crust pulled apart. Towering cliffs, Scylla Scopulus on one side and Charybdis Scopulus on the other, rise steeply around us.

To the left, the 150-kilometre Bakhuysen Crater comes into view.

Then, on the horizon: Flaugergues.

This ancient basin spans a staggering 240 kilometres. Its rim is broken and worn. Half of the crater floor is smooth, half rugged, with rocky terrain rising up to a kilometre high. A winding valley cuts across the interior, likely shaped by wind and lava flows over billions of years.

And one more thing: This isn’t how Mars Express actually flies. The video was created using real data from the mission’s High Resolution Stereo Camera, combined with topography models to build a 3D landscape of Mars. Every second of the journey is made from 50 carefully rendered frames, with atmospheric haze added to bring the Red Planet to life.

📹 / / ; / / / MSSS; BY-SA 3.0 IGO

Acknowledgements:
- Data processing & animation: Björn Schreiner
- Image Processing Group (FU Berlin)
📸 ESA/DLR/FU Berlin & NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

The first flower grown in space was a Zinnia, which successfully bloomed on the International Space Station (ISS) in Jan...
01/03/2026

The first flower grown in space was a Zinnia, which successfully bloomed on the International Space Station (ISS) in January 2016. While astronauts had grown plants like lettuce and zucchini previously, the Zinnia was a major breakthrough because it is a flowering plant that is much more sensitive to environmental factors and light cycles.

The project was part of NASA’s Veggie (Vegetable Production System) experiment. It wasn’t an easy win; midway through the process, the plants suffered from high humidity and mold. Astronaut Scott Kelly famously took over as an “autonomous gardener,” deviating from strict ground instructions to water the plants based on his own observations. His intervention saved the crop, leading to the historic bloom.

Growing flowers is a critical proof of concept for deep-space exploration. Since flowers require specific pollination and growth stages, mastering them proves that we can eventually grow fruiting plants like tomatoes or peppers in microgravity. Beyond the science, NASA found that having colorful, living plants significantly boosted the psychological well-being and morale of the crew in the sterile environment of the station.

Credit: Astronaut Scott Kelly

01/03/2026

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has mapped the upper atmosphere of Uranus!

🔴 Using the on Webb, astronomers collected data on the ionosphere – the upper atmosphere of Uranus, where it becomes ionised and interacts strongly with the planet’s magnetic field.

🔴 This provides the first ‘vertical’ view of the ionosphere. It revealed where Uranus’s auroras form, how they are shaped by its unusually tilted magnetic field 🧲 and how the atmosphere has cooled over the past three decades.

🔴 The results help us understand the energy balance of ice giants. This is a crucial step towards characterising giant planets beyond our Solar System.

📷 / , , , STScI, P. Tiranti, H. Melin, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

01/03/2026

Daily reminder: we are literally stardust✨

Every atom in your body was forged in ancient star explosions, scattered by supernovas, and recycled by the universe billions of years ago.

゚

Address

Athens

Telephone

+639174428486

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Stargazing Dreams posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Stargazing Dreams:

Shortcuts

Share

Category