Take a Summer Space Trip Through Images from NASA’s Chandra and Webb

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It’s time to take a summer space trip using light as the highway and visit four stunning destinations across space. The vehicles for this cosmic get-away are NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope. Embark on this incredible journey and explore the wonders of the universe.

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This release features four distinct composite images from NASA’s Chandra X

In each of the images, which add Chandra data to previously released Webb images, the colors represent different wavelengths of X-ray, optical, or infrared light. This summer space trip promises breathtaking sights and fascinating insights into our cosmos.

First Stop on the summer space trip: Rho Ophiuchi

The first stop on our summer space trip is Rho Ophiuchi, located about 390 light-years from Earth. Rho Ophiuchi is a cloud complex filled with gas and stars of different sizes and ages. Being one of the closest star-forming regions, Rho Ophiuchi is an excellent place for astronomers to study young stars.

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In this image, X-rays from Chandra are purple and reveal the hot, outer atmospheres of infant stars. Infrared data from Webb is red, yellow, cyan, light blue, and darker blue, providing views of the spectacular regions of gas and dust.

Second Destination: The Orion Nebula

The next destination on our summer space trip is the Orion Nebula, a giant cloud where stars are forming. Located in the Milky Way galaxy, this region is about 1,500 light-years away.

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If you look just below the middle of the three stars that make up the “belt” in the constellation of Orion, you may be able to see this nebula through a small telescope. However, with Chandra and Webb, we get to see so much more.

Chandra reveals young stars that glow brightly in X-rays, colored in red, green, and blue, while Webb shows the gas and dust in darker red that will help build the next generation of stars here.

Third Stop: NGC 3627

Our summer space trip now takes us out of our galaxy to visit NGC 3627, a spiral galaxy about 36 million light-years away. Like the Milky Way, NGC 3627 is a spiral galaxy that we see at a slight angle. NGC 3627 is known as a “barred” spiral galaxy because of the rectangular shape of its central region.

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From our vantage point, we can also see two distinct spiral arms that appear as arcs. X-rays from Chandra in purple show evidence for a supermassive black hole in its center as well as other dense objects like neutron stars and black holes pulling in matter. Meanwhile, Webb finds the dust, gas, and stars throughout the galaxy in red, green, and blue. This image also contains optical data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in red, green, and blue.

Final Destination of the summer space trip: MACS J0416

Our final landing place on this summer space trip is MACS J0416, a galaxy cluster about 4.3 billion light-years from Earth. Galaxy clusters are the largest objects in the universe held together by gravity.

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MACS J0416 can contain hundreds or even thousands of individual galaxies all immersed in massive amounts of superheated gas that Chandra can detect. In this view, Chandra’s X-rays in purple show this reservoir of hot gas while Hubble and Webb pick up the individual galaxies in red, green, and blue. The long thin lines are caused by matter in the cluster distorting the light from galaxies behind MACS J0416 in a process known as gravitational lensing.

This summer space trip has taken us on a journey through the vast expanse of the universe, revealing the incredible beauty and complexity of celestial objects. From star-forming regions to distant galaxies and massive galaxy clusters, the wonders of space continue to captivate and inspire. So, pack your bags for a summer space trip and let NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope be your guides to the stars.

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