Fast-Moving Star Orbits Milky Way’s Central Black Hole in Just Four Years

The newly-found star, named S4716, reaches a speed of 8,000 km/sec and comes as close as 98 astronomical units (Average distance between Earth and Sun) to Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole in the center of our Milky Way Galaxy.

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@EverythingScience

After analyzing data gathered when #OSIRISREx collected a sample from Bennu, scientists discovered the asteroid’s exterior is made of loosely packed & lightly bound rock. So, if you were to step onto Bennu, it would feel like stepping in a plastic ball pit

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Source: @Dr_ThomasZ

NASA will unveil the James Webb Space Telescope's 1st science photos this week. Here's how to watch.

The main image release event will take place on July 12 at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430 GMT).

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@EverythingScience

NASA Is About to Unveil The Deepest View of The Universe Ever – A Day Ahead of Schedule

The space agency announced that they'd actually be releasing one the very first image a day ahead of schedule – at 5pm EST (2100 UTC) today.

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@EverythingScience

👀 Sneak a peek at the deepest & sharpest infrared image of the early universe ever taken — all in a day’s work for the Webb telescope. (Literally, capturing it took less than a day!) This is Webb’s first image released as we begin to #UnfoldTheUniverse: http://nasa.gov/webbfirstimages/
Source: @NASAWebb

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This isn’t the farthest back we’ve observed. Non-infrared missions like COBE & WMAP saw the universe closer to the Big Bang (~380,000 years after), when there was only microwave background radiation, but no stars or galaxies. Webb sees a few 100 million years after the Big Bang.
Source: @NASAWebb

‍If you held a grain of sand up to the sky at arm’s length, that tiny speck is the size of Webb’s view in this image. Imagine — galaxies galore within a grain, including light from galaxies that traveled billions of years to us!
Source: @NASAWebb

NASA, in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency), will release the James Webb Space Telescope’s first full-color images and spectroscopic data during a live broadcast beginning at 14:30 UTC Tuesday, July 12, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

Released one by one, these first images from the world’s largest and most powerful space telescope will demonstrate Webb at its full power as it begins its mission to unfold the infrared universe.

Each image will simultaneously be made available on social media, as well as on the agency’s website at:
http://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

📺 Join us for the stream and
💬 comment on the live broadcast here

Canada’s instrument NIRISS on #Webb reveals the distinct signature of water 💧 in the atmosphere of a hot, puffy gas giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star. It also shows evidence of haze and clouds that previous studies of this planet did not detect. ☁

The spectrum captured by NIRISS isn’t only the most detailed of its kind to date, but it also covers a remarkably wide range of wavelengths, including a portion of the spectrum that has not previously been accessible from other telescopes.

This part of the spectrum is particularly sensitive to water as well as other key molecules like oxygen, methane, and carbon dioxide. Webb will play a significant role in the search for potentially habitable planets in the coming years.

Each of the 141 data points (white circles) on this graph represents the amount of a specific wavelength of light that is blocked by the planet and absorbed by its atmosphere.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and the Webb ERO Production Team
Source: @csa_asc

Why do some of the galaxies in this image appear bent? The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a “gravitational lens,” bending light rays from more distant galaxies behind it, magnifying them. The light from the farthest galaxy here traveled 13.1 billion years to us.
Source: @NASAWebb