Richard J. Bartlett

@astronomywriter.bsky.social

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🌘Freelance writer, former columnist for Astronomy magazine and author of books for astronomers. 🌒Pro human, slightly sarcastic but mostly harmless 🌊 https://tinyurl.com/rjbamazon-us https://tinyurl.com/rjb-hps

The artist's illustration features a star and a black hole in a system called GRO J1655-40. Here, the black hole is represented by a black sphere to our upper right of center. The star is represented by a bright yellow sphere to our lower left of center. In this illustration, the artist captures the immensely powerful supernova as a black hole is created from the collapse of a massive star, with an intense burst of blurred beams radiating from the black sphere. The blurred beams of red, orange, and yellow light show debris from the supernova streaking across the entire image in rippling waves. These beams rain debris on the bright yellow star. When astronomers used the Chandra X-ray Observatory to observe the system in 2005, they detected signatures of individual elements embedded in the X-ray light. Some of those elements are highlighted in the spectrum graph shown in the inset, positioned at our upper lefthand corner. The graph's vertical axis, on our left, indicates X-ray brightness from 0.0 up to 0.7 in intensity units. The horizontal axis, at the bottom of the graph, indicates Wavelength from 6 to 12 in units of Angstroms. On the graph, a tight zigzagging line begins near the top of the vertical axis, and slopes down toward the far end of the horizontal axis. The sharp dips show wavelengths where the light has been absorbed by different elements, decreasing the X-ray brightness. Some of the elements causing these dips have been labeled, including Silicon, Magnesium, Iron, Nickel, Neon, and Cobalt.
This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a rare cosmic phenomenon called an Einstein ring. What at first appears to be a single, strangely shaped galaxy is actually two galaxies that are separated by a large distance. The closer foreground galaxy sits at the center of the image, while the more distant background galaxy appears to be wrapped around the closer galaxy, forming a ring.
Artist’s impression of a hypervelocity star ejected from the Large Magellanic Cloud (shown on right). When a binary star system ventures too close to a supermassive black hole, the intense gravitational forces tear the pair apart. One star is captured into a tight orbit around the black hole, while the other is flung outward at extreme velocities—often exceeding millions of miles per hour—becoming a hypervelocity star. The inset illustration depicts this process: the original binary’s orbital path is shown as interwoven lines, with one star being captured by the black hole (near center of inset) while the other is ejected into space (lower right). Credit: CfA/Melissa Weiss
An artist’s conception of the exoplanet K2-33b, a 10 Myr Jupiter-sized planet, transiting in front of its active host star. This system is comparable to those that will be observed by the KRONOS collaboration. Illustration courtesy of NASA/JPL-CalTech
The artist's digital rendering shows a possible cause of the large white dot with the pink outer ring. A brilliant white circle near our upper right shows a white dwarf, the ember of a dying star. At our lower left, in the relative foreground of the rendering, is what remains of a planet. Here, the planet resembles a giant boulder shedding thousands of smaller rocks. These rocks flow off the planet's surface, pulled back toward the white dwarf in a long, swooping tail. Glowing orange fault lines mar the surface of the crumbling planet. In our upper left and lower right, inside the hazy blue clouds which blanket the rendering, are two other, more distant planets. After the rocks from the planet start striking the surface of the white dwarf, X-rays should be produced.
Artist’s impression of the Yellow Hypergiant star Rho Cassiopeiae around which gas shells form due to recurring outbursts observed in the last 130 years. Credit: Alex Lobel. Source: https://brass.heliohost.org/alobel/rhocas/RhoCasArt2025.png
This release features a highly detailed composite image of a star-forming region of space known as 30 Doradus, shaped like a bouquet, or a maple leaf. 30 Doradus is a powerful stellar nursery. In 23 days of observation, the Chandra X-ray telescope revealed thousands of distinct star systems. Chandra data also revealed a diffuse X-ray glow from winds blowing off giant stars, and X-ray gas expelled by exploding stars, or supernovas. In this image, the X-ray wind and gas takes the shape of a massive purple and pink bouquet with an extended central flower, or perhaps a leaf from a maple tree. The hazy, mottled shape occupies much of the image, positioned just to our left of center, tilted slightly to our left. Inside the purple and pink gas and wind cloud are red and orange veins, and pockets of bright white light. The pockets of white light represent clusters of young stars. One cluster at the heart of 30 Doradus houses the most massive stars astronomers have ever found. The hazy purple and pink bouquet is surrounded by glowing dots of green, white, orange, and red. A second mottled purple cloud shape, which resembles a ring of smoke, sits in our lower righthand corner.
Left: A schematic diagram of SN 2014C and its outer CSM, showing the gradual interaction between the SN ejecta (blue-white circle in the middle) and the outer CSM after the explosion. Top-right: Spectral evolution from a hydrogen-poor SN Ib to a hydrogen-rich SN IIn. Bottom-right: Bolometric luminosity and its model fitting, revealing the additional energy provided by the SN-CSM interaction present from the early stages. The colored arrows indicate the corresponding light curve epochs for the spectral evolution shown above. (Image by ZHAI Qian).
A close-up image of plumes erupting from the icey surface on Enceladus. Image via NASA.
Planetesimal collisions during planet formation in the early solar system
Artist’s impression of a microquasar system. A star and a black hole orbit each other closely: mass from the star is captured by the black hole. As a consequence of this, a pair of jets launch away from the black hole. Credit: Science Communication Lab for MPIK/H.E.S.S.
This image of Arp 220 was taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. Arp 220 is the aftermath of a collision between two spiral galaxies. It is the brightest of the three galactic mergers closest to Earth, about 250 million light-years away. Astronomers studied Arp 220 with the Submillimeter Array (SMA) to determine the role magnetic fields play in the formation of stars. Credit: NASA/ESA/STScI/HST
This image shows the habitable zone around the star HD 20794 (in green) and the trajectory of the three planets in the system. © Gabriel Pérez Díaz, SMM (IAC)
Simulation of a vast region of the Universe based on the current cosmological model and performed using supercomputers. In the image, the faint glow of the gas within the cosmic filaments, forming a dense cosmic web, is shown in white. At the intersections of these filaments, the gas within galaxies, which fuels the formation of new stars, is highlighted in red. © Alejandro Benitez-Llambay/Universität Mailand-Bicocca/MPA
This release features composite images shown side-by-side of two different galaxy clusters, each with a central black hole surrounded by patches and filaments of gas. The galaxy clusters, known as Perseus and Centaurus, are two of seven galaxy clusters observed as part of an international study led by the University of Santiago de Chile. In each image, a patch of purple with neon pink veins floats in the blackness of space, surrounded by flecks of light. At the center of each patch is a glowing, bright white dot. The bright white dots are black holes. The purple patches represent hot X-ray gas, and the neon pink veins represent filaments of warm gas. According to the model published in the study, jets from the black holes impact the hot X-ray gas. This gas cools into warm filaments, with some warm gas flowing back into the black hole. The return flow of warm gas causes jets to again cool the hot gas, triggering the cycle once again. While the images of the two galaxy clusters are broadly similar, there are significant visual differences. In the image of the Perseus Cluster on the left, the surrounding flecks of light are larger and brighter, making the individual galaxies they represent easier to discern. Here, the purple gas has a blue tint, and the hot pink filaments appear solid, as if rendered with quivering strokes of a paintbrush. In the image of the Centaurus Cluster on the right, the purple gas appears softer, with a more diffuse quality. The filaments are rendered in more detail, with feathery edges, and gradation in color ranging from pale pink to neon red.
Visible light image of M101 taken with the Seimei Telescope at Okayama Observatory, Kyoto University. Images can be compared before the supernova explosion (top left) and after SN 2023ixf appeared on May 20, 2023 (second image from top left).
The Atacama Cosmology Telescope measures the oldest light in the universe, known as the cosmic microwave background. Using those measurements, scientists can calculate the universe’s age. (Image: Debra Kellner)
All 74 exocomet belts, as imaged in this study. Image: Prof. Luca Matrà.
CHIME detectors under a clear, dark, starry sky. Credit: CHIME, Andre Renard, Dunlap Institute for Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto.
IMAP will use ten instruments to explore and chart the vast range of particles in interplanetary space. Credits: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Princeton/Ed Whitman
NGC 300 is a small galaxy in a relatively isolated region of the universe. About 6 million light-years from Earth, it is one of the Milky Way's closer neighbors. European Southern Observatory
This artist’s illustration represents the results from a new study that examines the effects of X-ray and other high-energy radiation unleashed on potential exoplanets from a host star. As outlined in our latest press release, astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton observed Wolf 359, a red dwarf that is only 7.8 light-years from Earth, making it one of the closest stars to the Earth other than the Sun. The artist’s rendering shows Wolf 359 in the foreground and a potential planet in orbit around it in the background. Red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the Universe. They are much smaller and dimmer than Sun-like stars, which allows them to last for trillions of years. This would give planets in orbit around them ample time for life to form and emerge, which makes them particularly interesting to scientists looking for life beyond the Solar System.
Artist’s impression of GJ 1214 b passing in front of its host star. The “transit method” allows astronomers to study an exoplanet by seeing which wavelengths of light dim when the star’s light passes through the exoplanet atmosphere. (Credit: NAOJ)
The WASP-132 system contains a Hot Jupiter (in the foreground), an inner super-Earth (here transiting in front of the orange host star) and the planet WASP-132d, discovered towards the outside of the system. © Thibaut Roger - Université de Genève
This artist’s conception of the mid-IR flare in Sgr A* captures the variability, or changing intensity, of the flare as the black hole’s magnetic field lines approach each other. The byproduct of this magnetic reconnection is synchrotron emission. The emission seen in the flare intensifies as energized electrons travel along the SMBH’s magnetic field lines at close to the speed of light. Credit: CfA/Mel Weiss
This image of Westerlund 1, one of the most massive young super star clusters in the Milky Way, combines data from JWST’s MIRI and NIRCam instruments to reveal detailed structures within the cluster's environment. The color image reveals intricate details of gas and dust in the cluster, with longer-wavelength mid-infrared emission (red) highlighting warm dust and gas, shorter mid-infrared emission (green) tracing complex structures of cooler dust and gas, and near-infrared emission (blue) showcasing the brilliant light of young, massive stars embedded in this cluster. These observations provide important insights into how stellar winds and radiation from massive stars interact with the surrounding material, shaping the cluster's morphology and influencing its evolution. North is 15 degrees to the right of up and east is to the left. Credit: D. Capela (University of Lisbon), M. G. Guarcello (INAF-OAPA) and the EWOCS team
Cartoon of the TOI-4504 system generated by DeepAI
Example of data obtained by PFS observing celestial objects in the Andromeda Galaxy region. On the left, the positions of the PFS fibers configured to observe individual celestial objects are marked by circles on an image of the Andromeda Galaxy taken with HSC (Hyper Suprime-Cam) (Credit: NAOJ). The cyan rectangle represents the field of view of the multi-object spectrograph DEIMOS in operation at W. M. Keck Observatory for comparison. On the right, a magnified image of the observed celestial object is shown, along with the spectra obtained by PFS. (Credit: PFS Project/Kavli IPMU/NAOJ)
The Hurst fire, from roughly 5 miles away, 11:00pm Tuesday night. The hill is on fire with visible flames while the palm trees are blowing with winds from the north
CTAO’s southern hemisphere site or CTAO-South. The array is located less than 10 km southeast of the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) existing Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert. © CTAO
This composite of enhanced color images of Pluto (lower right) and Charon (upper left), was taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft as it passed through the Pluto system on July 14, 2015. Credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI
Abell 370, a galaxy cluster located nearly 4 billion light-years away from Earth features several arcs of light, including the "Dragon Arc" (lower left of center). These arcs are caused by gravitational lensing: Light from distant galaxies far behind the massive galaxy cluster coming toward Earth is bent around Abell 370 by its massive gravity, resulting in contorted images. Credit: NASA
Star cluster NGC 602 in vibrant and festive colors. The cluster includes a giant dust cloud ring, shown in greens, yellows, blues, and oranges. The green hues and feathery edges of the ring cloud create the appearance of a wreath made of evergreen boughs. Hints of red representing X-rays provide shading, highlighting layers within the wreath-like ring cloud. The image is aglow with specks and dots of colorful, festive light, in blues, golds, whites, oranges, and reds. These lights represent stars within the cluster. Some of the lights gleam with diffraction spikes, while others emit a warm, diffuse glow. Upon closer inspection, many of the glowing specks have spiraling arms, indicating that they are, in fact, distant galaxies.