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ESA to pick up as Webb phones home
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By European Space Agency
Video: 00:06:15 English
From 7 to 11 April, ESA's Centre for Earth Observation in Frascati, ESRIN, hosted the 2025 edition of ESA School Days, welcoming almost 1400 young students.
The event kicked off with primary school students (4th and 5th grades) visiting during the first three days, followed by secondary school students on the final two days.
Throughout the week, 35 schools from across Italy engaged in presentations and laboratories, delving into the diverse space activities conducted at ESA’s establishment.
This initiative, which included contributions from ESERO Italia and the Italian Space Agency (ASI), aims to inspire and engage the next generation of STEM students by sharing knowledge about space and the European Space Agency.
Italian
Dal 7 all'11 aprile, ESRIN, il Centro per l'Osservazione della Terra dell'ESA a Frascati, ha ospitato l'edizione 2025 degli ESA School Days, accogliendo quasi1 400 giovani studenti. L'evento ha preso il via con la visita degli studenti delle scuole primarie (classi quarte e quinte) durante i primi tre giorni, seguiti dagli studenti delle scuole secondarie nei due giorni finali.
Per tutta la settimana, 35 scuole da tutta Italia si sono cimentate in presentazioni e laboratori, approfondendo la loro conoscenza delle diverse attività spaziali condotte presso lo stabilimento dell'ESA.
L'iniziativa, che ha visto il contributo di ESERO Italia e dell'Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI), mira a ispirare e coinvolgere la prossima generazione di studenti STEM condividendo le conoscenze sullo spazio e sull'Agenzia Spaziale Europea.
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By European Space Agency
Registrations are now open for the European Space Agency’s Living Planet Symposium (LPS) – one of the largest Earth observation conferences in the world. The event will take place on 23–27 June 2025 in Vienna, Austria.
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By NASA
This S-3 supported vital flight research by donating parts to its sister plane, another S3-B Viking that was retired in 2021.Credit: NASA/Jordan Cochran After supporting the center’s research missions for more than a decade, NASA’s S-3B Viking aircraft is moving on from NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland to begin a new and honorable assignment.
The aircraft is heading to the National POW/MIA Memorial and Museum in Jacksonville, Florida, where it will be on display, honoring all Prisoners of War (POW), those Missing in Action (MIA), and the families who seek the return of their loved ones. The museum gives visitors a place of solace to reflect, learn, and hear stories about America’s POW and MIA service members through exhibits and events.
A team of volunteers, many of whom are veterans, converged to disassemble an S-3B Viking at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland so it could be transported by truck to the National Pow/MIA Memorial and Museum in Jacksonville, Florida. Credit: NASA/Lillianne Hammel “We are honored to be part of it,” said JD Demers, chief of Aircraft Operations at NASA Glenn. “Moving the S-3 is a win-win for everybody. The museum gets an aircraft in beautiful shape, and our S-3 gets to continue living a meaningful life.”
Originally designed by Lockheed Martin as an anti-submarine warfare aircraft, NASA’s S-3B Viking will travel south to its new museum home, which is located at the former Naval Air Station Cecil Field where S-3B Vikings once flew. It will be displayed with a plaque recognizing the 54 service members who perished during S-3 flight missions.
NASA’s JD Demers poses with National POW/MIA Memorial and Museum’s Ed Turner in front of NASA’s S-3B Viking aircraft. Credit: NASA/Jordan Cochran “It’s really fortunate for us that this S-3 has such a well-kept, beautiful airframe that we can use as part of this plaza,” said Ed Turner, executive director of the National POW/MIA Memorial and Museum. “Cecil Field was the East Coast home for the S-3B Vikings, so we are proud to have it for display here as one of Cecil’s legacy aircraft.”
Behind the scenes, this S-3 supported vital NASA flight research by donating parts to its sister plane, another S3-B Viking that was retired in 2021. Through the donation of its parts, the S-3 contributed to communications research in advanced air mobility and monitoring of algal bloom growth in Lake Erie.
“Having this aircraft added an extra 10 years of life to its sister plane,” Demers said. “Those 10 years were vital for research. This plane allowed us to keep flying that aircraft after the Navy retired the S-3B Vikings in 2009. We wouldn’t have been able to find parts.”
NASA prepares its S-3B Viking for its journey to the National POW/MIA Memorial and Museum in Jacksonville, Florida.Credit: NASA/Sara Lowthian-Hanna The U.S. Navy flew S-3 Vikings primarily out of three locations: North Island Naval Air Station, Naval Air Station Cecil Field, and Naval Air Station Jacksonville. There were S-3B Vikings in all locations except Jacksonville, until now.
“There are three bases in three locations that used to fly S-3s, and now each area has an S-3 as part of its display,” Demers said. “It belongs there. It’s going back to its original home.”
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By NASA
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 With NASA’s Webb, Dying Star’s Energetic Display Comes Into Full Focus
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken the most detailed image of planetary nebula NGC 1514 to date thanks to its unique mid-infrared observations. Webb shows its rings as intricate clumps of dust. It’s also easier to see holes punched through the bright pink central region. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Michael Ressler (NASA-JPL), Dave Jones (IAC) Gas and dust ejected by a dying star at the heart of NGC 1514 came into complete focus thanks to mid-infrared data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Its rings, which are only detected in infrared light, now look like “fuzzy” clumps arranged in tangled patterns, and a network of clearer holes close to the central stars shows where faster material punched through.
“Before Webb, we weren’t able to detect most of this material, let alone observe it so clearly,” said Mike Ressler, a researcher and project scientist for Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in southern California. He discovered the rings around NGC 1514 in 2010 when he examined the image from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). “With MIRI’s data, we can now comprehensively examine the turbulent nature of this nebula,” he said.
This scene has been forming for at least 4,000 years — and will continue to change over many more millennia. At the center are two stars that appear as one in Webb’s observation, and are set off with brilliant diffraction spikes. The stars follow a tight, elongated nine-year orbit and are draped in an arc of dust represented in orange.
One of these stars, which used to be several times more massive than our Sun, took the lead role in producing this scene. “As it evolved, it puffed up, throwing off layers of gas and dust in in a very slow, dense stellar wind,” said David Jones, a senior scientist at the Institute of Astrophysics on the Canary Islands, who proved there is a binary star system at the center in 2017.
Once the star’s outer layers were expelled, only its hot, compact core remained. As a white dwarf star, its winds both sped up and weakened, which might have swept up material into thin shells.
Image A: Planetary Nebula NGC 1514 (MIRI Image)
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken the most detailed image of planetary nebula NGC 1514 to date thanks to its unique mid-infrared observations. Webb shows its rings as intricate clumps of dust. It’s also easier to see holes punched through the bright pink central region. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Michael Ressler (NASA-JPL), Dave Jones (IAC) Image B: Planetary Nebula NGC 1514 (WISE and Webb Images Side by Side)
Two infrared views of NGC 1514. At left is an observation from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). At right is a more refined image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL, Caltech, UCLA, Michael Ressler (NASA-JPL), Dave Jones (IAC) Its Hourglass Shape
Webb’s observations show the nebula is tilted at a 60-degree angle, which makes it look like a can is being poured, but it’s far more likely that NGC 1514 takes the shape of an hourglass with the ends lopped off. Look for hints of its pinched waist near top left and bottom right, where the dust is orange and drifts into shallow V-shapes.
What might explain these contours? “When this star was at its peak of losing material, the companion could have gotten very, very close,” Jones said. “That interaction can lead to shapes that you wouldn’t expect. Instead of producing a sphere, this interaction might have formed these rings.”
Though the outline of NGC 1514 is clearest, the hourglass also has “sides” that are part of its three-dimensional shape. Look for the dim, semi-transparent orange clouds between its rings that give the nebula body.
A Network of Dappled Structures
The nebula’s two rings are unevenly illuminated in Webb’s observations, appearing more diffuse at bottom left and top right. They also look fuzzy, or textured. “We think the rings are primarily made up of very small dust grains,” Ressler said. “When those grains are hit by ultraviolet light from the white dwarf star, they heat up ever so slightly, which we think makes them just warm enough to be detected by Webb in mid-infrared light.”
In addition to dust, the telescope also revealed oxygen in its clumpy pink center, particularly at the edges of the bubbles or holes.
NGC 1514 is also notable for what is absent. Carbon and more complex versions of it, smoke-like material known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, are common in planetary nebulae (expanding shells of glowing gas expelled by stars late in their lives). Neither were detected in NGC 1514. More complex molecules might not have had time to form due to the orbit of the two central stars, which mixed up the ejected material. A simpler composition also means that the light from both stars reaches much farther, which is why we see the faint, cloud-like rings.
What about the bright blue star to the lower left with slightly smaller diffraction spikes than the central stars? It’s not part of this nebula. In fact, this star lies closer to us.
This planetary nebula has been studied by astronomers since the late 1700s. Astronomer William Herschel noted in 1790 that NGC 1514 was the first deep sky object to appear genuinely cloudy — he could not resolve what he saw into individual stars within a cluster, like other objects he cataloged. With Webb, our view is considerably clearer.
NGC 1514 lies in the Taurus constellation approximately 1,500 light-years from Earth.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe 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 the Canadian Space Agency.
To learn more about Webb, visit: https://science.nasa.gov/webb
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Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Claire Blome – cblome@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Science Advisor
Michael Ressler (NASA-JPL)
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Last Updated Apr 14, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Astrophysics Binary Stars Goddard Space Flight Center Nebulae Planetary Nebulae Science & Research Stars The Universe White Dwarfs View the full article
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