New JWST image just dropped.

This object is called Herbig-Haro 49/50. It's the outflow of a still-forming star hidden from view to the lower right of the orangish cone of material oriented diagonally in this image.

As stars form they eject excess matter in the direction of their poles of rotation. That material encounters the interstellar medium in the vicinity and lights up in response. "Like the wake of a speeding boat, the bow shocks in this image have an arc-like appearance as the fast-moving jet from the young star slams into the surrounding dust and gas."

Purely by coincidence, the outflow lines up with a distant background galaxy, which is the circular pinkish/blue object at upper left.

More info about the image: https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-telescope-unmasks-true-nature-of-the-cosmic-tornado/

The nearest single star to Earth has four small planets.

Science News reports: "This is the second study in six months to find planets around Barnard’s star."

https://flip.it/3Z.LGK

In the next few months, from its perch atop a mountain in Chile, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will begin surveying the #cosmos with the largest camera ever built.

Every three nights, it will produce a map of the entire southern sky filled with #stars, #galaxies, #asteroids and @supernovae — and swarms of bright #satellites ruining some of the view.

Swarms of satellites are harming #astronomy.

Here’s how researchers are fighting back.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00792-y

I took this photo last week in the Rhön.

Early in the year, the Milky Way is still flat above the horizon and is perfect for panoramas. Later in the year, the Milky Way becomes more and more vertical above the horizon.

I like this galaxy very much. However, I don't know if I like it because of its "grand design" or because it reminds me of The Time Tunnel. Yes, that ancient TV show in which Tony and Douglas were inevitably lost in time. (Never understood how the guys in charge could retrieve a massive mammut from the past, but not the pair of time travelers together). Anyway, this is M51, The Time Tunnel.

Freeform crochet circles in shades of orange. Probably will end up as a batwing top... imagine the binary sunset scenes in Star Wars... but with more suns!

Did you know we're essentially all #STARS? That is to say, we’re actually the children of stars!

How does it feel to have stars for parents?

https://bigthink.com/the-past/how-we-discovered-were-all-made-of-star-stuff/
(You can skip to the last paragraph :)

My painting, "Capybara Among the Stars"! This one lived in my head for weeks!

Today, the Celestial Raven Pocket Pal got a brand new photoshoot as well! The old ones didn’t give it justice

One is left in stock, you can adopt it on my website https://evanskyarts.com/en/products/celestial-raven-pocket-pal ️

The stars from my front steps last night, 3/3/2025. Contrast and highlights adjusted to compensate for landscape lighting. #stars Constellation identification beyond Orion welcome for #altText4me #alt4me.

Hot new #JWST image just dropped. (Literally hot; the temperature inside this object can reach upward of 25,000 degrees.)

Meet the planetary #nebula NGC 1514, aka the "Crystal Ball Nebula". It's about 1500 light years away from Earth in the direction of the constellation Taurus.

Planetary nebulae occur toward the end of the lives of #stars that have about the mass of the Sun. They shed their outer layers into space, leaving behind an Earth-sized star called a white dwarf. Its temperature can be up to about 100,000 degrees, so it emits a lot of ultraviolet and X-ray light. That light energizes the gas ejected during the earlier phase, lighting it up like a neon sign. (NGC 1514's white dwarf is the bright star at the center with the spikes, which are an artifact of the telescope's optics.)

This image is a composite of individual frames made through three colored filters by the Webb telescope's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The image shows two concentric shells of material whose bright edges appear as circles. It's actually an hourglass-shaped structure seen an angle inclined to our line of sight toward NGC 1514.

A newly published study finds that these rings are different than the reddish material inside them. The light they emit comes from very tiny grains of carbon-rich material given off by the progenitor star very late in its life.

But why the ring shapes? It turns out that the progenitor star was actually two, only one of which endured this phase of high mass loss. Energetic "winds" given off by the stellar pair shaped the carbon grains as they were pushed away from the system.

(Processing of this image was done by Judy Schmidt: https://www.flickr.com/photos/geckzilla/54206737999)

Sky full of stars through the trees, Gauteng, South Africa. Bats whirling and scything through the night and the call of Hadida Ibises in the trees.

(If anyone can help me identify the constellation, I’d be really grateful. It’s just next to Orion.)

This whimsy little illustration is probably one of my most popular to date! It is available as a print and a postcard (though I only have 2 of those left right now)!
️ https://evanskyarts.com/en/products/space-raccoon-print

promise of new heights
we keep reaching for the stars
and making wishes

#mastoprompt - promise

ART
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/keep-reaching-for-the-stars-sharon-cummings.html

Forged from stars, in fire’s glow, Cosmic whispers softly flow. Silent watcher, wise and true, Made of stardust, just like you. The Owl of the Cosmos whispers of our origins, guiding us to embrace the wisdom within and soar toward the infinite mysteries of the universe. #space #art #stars