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Nearby Massive Star Cluster Yields Insights into Early Universe
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Explore This Section Webb News Latest News Latest Images Blog (offsite) Awards X (offsite – login reqd) Instagram (offsite – login reqd) Facebook (offsite- login reqd) Youtube (offsite) Overview About Who is James Webb? Fact Sheet Impacts+Benefits FAQ Science Overview and Goals Early Universe Galaxies Over Time Star Lifecycle Other Worlds Observatory Overview Launch Deployment Orbit Mirrors Sunshield Instrument: NIRCam Instrument: MIRI Instrument: NIRSpec Instrument: FGS/NIRISS Optical Telescope Element Backplane Spacecraft Bus Instrument Module Multimedia About Webb Images Images Videos What is Webb Observing? 3d Webb in 3d Solar System Podcasts Webb Image Sonifications Team International Team People Of Webb More For the Media For Scientists For Educators For Fun/Learning 5 Min Read NASA Webb Explores Effect of Strong Magnetic Fields on Star Formation
An image of the Milky Way captured by the MeerKAT radio telescope array puts the James Webb Space Telescope’s image of the Sagittarius C region in context. Full image below. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, SARAO, Samuel Crowe (UVA), John Bally (CU), Ruben Fedriani (IAA-CSIC), Ian Heywood (Oxford) Follow-up research on a 2023 image of the Sagittarius C stellar nursery in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, has revealed ejections from still-forming protostars and insights into the impact of strong magnetic fields on interstellar gas and the life cycle of stars.
“A big question in the Central Molecular Zone of our galaxy has been, if there is so much dense gas and cosmic dust here, and we know that stars form in such clouds, why are so few stars born here?” said astrophysicist John Bally of the University of Colorado Boulder, one of the principal investigators. “Now, for the first time, we are seeing directly that strong magnetic fields may play an important role in suppressing star formation, even at small scales.”
Detailed study of stars in this crowded, dusty region has been limited, but Webb’s advanced near-infrared instruments have allowed astronomers to see through the clouds to study young stars like never before.
“The extreme environment of the galactic center is a fascinating place to put star formation theories to the test, and the infrared capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope provide the opportunity to build on past important observations from ground-based telescopes like ALMA and MeerKAT,” said Samuel Crowe, another principal investigator on the research, a senior undergraduate at the University of Virginia and a 2025 Rhodes Scholar.
Bally and Crowe each led a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal.
Image A: Milky Way Center (MeerKAT and Webb)
An image of the Milky Way captured by the MeerKAT (formerly the Karoo Array Telescope) radio telescope array puts the James Webb Space Telescope’s image of the Sagittarius C region in context. Like a super-long exposure photograph, MeerKAT shows the bubble-like remnants of supernovas that exploded over millennia, capturing the dynamic nature of the Milky Way’s chaotic core. At the center of the MeerKAT image the region surrounding the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole blazes bright. Huge vertical filamentary structures echo those captured on a smaller scale by Webb in Sagittarius C’s blue-green hydrogen cloud. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, SARAO, Samuel Crowe (UVA), John Bally (CU), Ruben Fedriani (IAA-CSIC), Ian Heywood (Oxford) Image B: Milky Way Center (MeerKAT and Webb), Labeled
The star-forming region Sagittarius C, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, is about 200 light-years from the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*. The spectral index at the lower left shows how color was assigned to the radio data to create the image. On the negative end, there is non-thermal emission, stimulated by electrons spiraling around magnetic field lines. On the positive side, thermal emission is coming from hot, ionized plasma. For Webb, color is assigned by shifting the infrared spectrum to visible light colors. The shortest infrared wavelengths are bluer, and the longer wavelengths appear more red. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, SARAO, Samuel Crowe (UVA), John Bally (CU), Ruben Fedriani (IAA-CSIC), Ian Heywood (Oxford) Using Infrared to Reveal Forming Stars
In Sagittarius C’s brightest cluster, the researchers confirmed the tentative finding from the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) that two massive stars are forming there. Along with infrared data from NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope and SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy) mission, as well as the Herschel Space Observatory, they used Webb to determine that each of the massive protostars is already more than 20 times the mass of the Sun. Webb also revealed the bright outflows powered by each protostar.
Even more challenging is finding low-mass protostars, still shrouded in cocoons of cosmic dust. Researchers compared Webb’s data with ALMA’s past observations to identify five likely low-mass protostar candidates.
The team also identified 88 features that appear to be shocked hydrogen gas, where material being blasted out in jets from young stars impacts the surrounding gas cloud. Analysis of these features led to the discovery of a new star-forming cloud, distinct from the main Sagittarius C cloud, hosting at least two protostars powering their own jets.
“Outflows from forming stars in Sagittarius C have been hinted at in past observations, but this is the first time we’ve been able to confirm them in infrared light. It’s very exciting to see, because there is still a lot we don’t know about star formation, especially in the Central Molecular Zone, and it’s so important to how the universe works,” said Crowe.
Magnetic Fields and Star Formation
Webb’s 2023 image of Sagittarius C showed dozens of distinctive filaments in a region of hot hydrogen plasma surrounding the main star-forming cloud. New analysis by Bally and his team has led them to hypothesize that the filaments are shaped by magnetic fields, which have also been observed in the past by the ground-based observatories ALMA and MeerKAT (formerly the Karoo Array Telescope).
“The motion of gas swirling in the extreme tidal forces of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, can stretch and amplify the surrounding magnetic fields. Those fields, in turn, are shaping the plasma in Sagittarius C,” said Bally.
The researchers think that the magnetic forces in the galactic center may be strong enough to keep the plasma from spreading, instead confining it into the concentrated filaments seen in the Webb image. These strong magnetic fields may also resist the gravity that would typically cause dense clouds of gas and dust to collapse and forge stars, explaining Sagittarius C’s lower-than-expected star formation rate.
“This is an exciting area for future research, as the influence of strong magnetic fields, in the center of our galaxy or other galaxies, on stellar ecology has not been fully considered,” said Crowe.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
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Explore Hubble Hubble Home Overview About Hubble The History of Hubble Hubble Timeline Why Have a Telescope in Space? Hubble by the Numbers At the Museum FAQs Impact & Benefits Hubble’s Impact & Benefits Science Impacts Cultural Impact Technology Benefits Impact on Human Spaceflight Astro Community Impacts Science Hubble Science Science Themes Science Highlights Science Behind Discoveries Hubble’s Partners in Science Universe Uncovered Explore the Night Sky Observatory Hubble Observatory Hubble Design Mission Operations Missions to Hubble Hubble vs Webb Team Hubble Team Career Aspirations Hubble Astronauts News Hubble News Hubble News Archive Social Media Media Resources Multimedia Multimedia Images Videos Sonifications Podcasts e-Books Online Activities Lithographs Fact Sheets Posters Hubble on the NASA App Glossary More 35th Anniversary Online Activities 5 Min Read 20-Year Hubble Study of Uranus Yields New Atmospheric Insights
The image columns show the change of Uranus for the four years that STIS observed Uranus across a 20-year period. Over that span of time, the researchers watched the seasons of Uranus as the south polar region darkened going into winter shadow while the north polar region brightened as northern summer approaches. Credits:
NASA, ESA, Erich Karkoschka (LPL) The ice-giant planet Uranus, which travels around the Sun tipped on its side, is a weird and mysterious world. Now, in an unprecedented study spanning two decades, researchers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have uncovered new insights into the planet’s atmospheric composition and dynamics. This was possible only because of Hubble’s sharp resolution, spectral capabilities, and longevity.
The team’s results will help astronomers to better understand how the atmosphere of Uranus works and responds to changing sunlight. These long-term observations provide valuable data for understanding the atmospheric dynamics of this distant ice giant, which can serve as a proxy for studying exoplanets of similar size and composition.
When Voyager 2 flew past Uranus in 1986, it provided a close-up snapshot of the sideways planet. What it saw resembled a bland, blue-green billiard ball. By comparison, Hubble chronicled a 20-year story of seasonal changes from 2002 to 2022. Over that period, a team led by Erich Karkoschka of the University of Arizona, and Larry Sromovsky and Pat Fry from the University of Wisconsin used the same Hubble instrument, STIS (the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph), to paint an accurate picture of the atmospheric structure of Uranus.
Uranus’ atmosphere is mostly hydrogen and helium, with a small amount of methane and traces of water and ammonia. The methane gives Uranus its cyan color by absorbing the red wavelengths of sunlight.
The Hubble team observed Uranus four times in the 20-year period: in 2002, 2012, 2015, and 2022. They found that, unlike conditions on the gas giants Saturn and Jupiter, methane is not uniformly distributed across Uranus. Instead, it is strongly depleted near the poles. This depletion remained relatively constant over the two decades. However, the aerosol and haze structure changed dramatically, brightening significantly in the northern polar region as the planet approaches its northern summer solstice in 2030.
The image columns show the change of Uranus for the four years that STIS observed Uranus across a 20-year period. Over that span of time, the researchers watched the seasons of Uranus as the south polar region darkened going into winter shadow while the north polar region brightened as northern summer approaches. NASA, ESA, Erich Karkoschka (LPL) Uranus takes a little over 84 Earth years to complete a single orbit of the Sun. So, over two decades, the Hubble team has only seen mostly northern spring as the Sun moves from shining directly over Uranus’ equator toward shining almost directly over its north pole in 2030. Hubble observations suggest complex atmospheric circulation patterns on Uranus during this period. The data that are most sensitive to the methane distribution indicate a downwelling in the polar regions and upwelling in other regions.
The team analyzed their results in several ways. The image columns show the change of Uranus for the four years that STIS observed Uranus across a 20-year period. Over that span of time, the researchers watched the seasons of Uranus as the south polar region (left) darkened going into winter shadow while the north polar region (right) brightened as it began to come into a more direct view as northern summer approaches.
The top row, in visible light, shows how the color of Uranus appears to the human eye as seen through even an amateur telescope.
In the second row, the false-color image of the planet is assembled from visible and near-infrared light observations. The color and brightness correspond to the amounts of methane and aerosols. Both of these quantities could not be distinguished before Hubble’s STIS was first aimed at Uranus in 2002. Generally, green areas indicate less methane than blue areas, and red areas show no methane. The red areas are at the limb, where the stratosphere of Uranus is almost completely devoid of methane.
The two bottom rows show the latitude structure of aerosols and methane inferred from 1,000 different wavelengths (colors) from visible to near infrared. In the third row, bright areas indicate cloudier conditions, while the dark areas represent clearer conditions. In the fourth row, bright areas indicate depleted methane, while dark areas show the full amount of methane.
At middle and low latitudes, aerosols and methane depletion have their own latitudinal structure that mostly did not change much over the two decades of observation. However, in the polar regions, aerosols and methane depletion behave very differently.
In the third row, the aerosols near the north pole display a dramatic increase, showing up as very dark during early northern spring, turning very bright in recent years. Aerosols also seem to disappear at the left limb as the solar radiation disappeared. This is evidence that solar radiation changes the aerosol haze in the atmosphere of Uranus. On the other hand, methane depletion seems to stay quite high in both polar regions throughout the observing period.
Astronomers will continue to observe Uranus as the planet approaches northern summer.
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
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Last Updated Mar 31, 2025 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Contact Media Claire Andreoli
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By USH
Some days ago we wrote about recent satellite scans which have revealed massive structures buried up to two kilometers beneath the Giza Plateau, particularly beneath the Pyramid of Khafre. Researchers speculate that these hidden formations may not only contain undiscovered chambers, possibly linked to the legendary Hall of Records but that these subterranean structures could also function similarly to Nikola Tesla's coil, suggesting that they may have once served as colossal power plants, generating and distributing energy on a grand scale.
This revelation has reignited interest in the prophecies of Edgar Cayce, often called the "Sleeping Prophet." Cayce predicted the existence of an underground chamber, known as the Hall of Records, containing lost knowledge from Atlantis, hidden beneath the Sphinx. He also spoke of a powerful energy grid, which he believed once existed in the region.
In the 1930s, Cayce’s psychic readings described Atlantis as a technologically advanced civilization, (Could it be that the Atlanteans were the previous civilization that was on Earth?) that collapsed around 10,500 BC due to corruption and the misuse of power. According to him, survivors of this catastrophe fled to Egypt, where they shared knowledge of engineering, spirituality, and civilization-building. Cayce suggested that these Atlantean refugees played a pivotal role in constructing the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx shortly after their arrival.
Suppose that the Atlanteans indeed contributed to these monumental structures, could they have collaborated not only with the local inhabitants but also with giant humanoids who once roamed the Earth? Cayce described the Hall of Records as an underground chamber situated between the Sphinx and the Nile River, with its entrance concealed near the Sphinx’s right paw. He claimed the hall contained inscriptions in both Atlantean and Egyptian scripts and was designed in a pyramid-like shape. He further prophesied that its discovery would coincide with a period of global upheaval and transformation.
Despite extensive archaeological investigations, definitive proof of the Hall of Records remains elusive. However, as early as the 1990s, ground-penetrating radar detected anomalies and hollow spaces beneath the Sphinx. With advancements in technology and the recent satellite scans, could Cayce's predictions, regarding a powerful energy grid and the Hall of Records containing lost Atlantean knowledge, prove to be true?
As scientific inquiry continues, we may be on the verge of uncovering secrets buried deep beneath the pyramids, potentially reshaping our understanding of history. View the full article
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By NASA
X-ray: NASA/CXC/Technion/N. Keshet et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/SAO/M. Weiss People often think about archaeology happening deep in jungles or inside ancient pyramids. However, a team of astronomers has shown that they can use stars and the remains they leave behind to conduct a special kind of archaeology in space.
Mining data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, the team of astronomers studied the relics that one star left behind after it exploded. This “supernova archaeology” uncovered important clues about a star that self-destructed – probably more than a million years ago.
Today, the system called GRO J1655-40 contains a black hole with nearly seven times the mass of the Sun and a star with about half as much mass. However, this was not always the case.
Originally GRO J1655-40 had two shining stars. The more massive of the two stars, however, burned through all of its nuclear fuel and then exploded in what astronomers call a supernova. The debris from the destroyed star then rained onto the companion star in orbit around it, as shown in the artist’s concept.
This artist’s impression shows the effects of the collapse and supernova explosion of a massive star. A black hole (right) was formed in the collapse and debris from the supernova explosion is raining down onto a companion star (left), polluting its atmosphere.CXC/SAO/M. Weiss With its outer layers expelled, including some striking its neighbor, the rest of the exploded star collapsed onto itself and formed the black hole that exists today. The separation between the black hole and its companion would have shrunk over time because of energy being lost from the system, mainly through the production of gravitational waves. When the separation became small enough, the black hole, with its strong gravitational pull, began pulling matter from its companion, wrenching back some of the material its exploded parent star originally deposited.
While most of this material sank into the black hole, a small amount of it fell into a disk that orbits around the black hole. Through the effects of powerful magnetic fields and friction in the disk, material is being sent out into interstellar space in the form of powerful winds.
This is where the X-ray archaeological hunt enters the story. Astronomers used Chandra to observe the GRO J1655-40 system in 2005 when it was particularly bright in X-rays. Chandra detected signatures of individual elements found in the black hole’s winds by getting detailed spectra – giving X-ray brightness at different wavelengths – embedded in the X-ray light. Some of these elements are highlighted in the spectrum shown in the inset.
The team of astronomers digging through the Chandra data were able to reconstruct key physical characteristics of the star that exploded from the clues imprinted in the X-ray light by comparing the spectra with computer models of stars that explode as supernovae. They discovered that, based on the amounts of 18 different elements in the wind, the long-gone star destroyed in the supernova was about 25 times the mass of the Sun, and was much richer in elements heavier than helium in comparison with the Sun.
This analysis paves the way for more supernova archaeology studies using other outbursts of double star systems.
A paper describing these results titled “Supernova Archaeology with X-Ray Binary Winds: The Case of GRO J1655−40” was published in The Astrophysical Journal in May 2024. The authors of this study are Noa Keshet (Technion — Israel Institute of Technology), Ehud Behar (Technion), and Timothy Kallman (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center).
NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.
Read more from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory.
Learn more about the Chandra X-ray Observatory and its mission here:
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Visual Description
This release features an artist’s rendering of a supernova explosion, inset with a spectrum graph.
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.
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By European Space Agency
Using the unique infrared sensitivity of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, researchers can examine ancient galaxies to probe secrets of the early Universe. Now, an international team of astronomers has identified bright hydrogen emission from a galaxy in an unexpectedly early time in the Universe’s history. The surprise finding is challenging researchers to explain how this light could have pierced the thick fog of neutral hydrogen that filled space at that time.
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