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Finding Clues in Ruins of Ancient Dead Star With NASA’s Chandra
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:
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.
News Media ContactMegan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center
Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu
Lane Figueroa
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Alabama
256-544-0034
lane.e.figueroa@nasa.gov
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Farewell, Gaia: spacecraft operations come to an end
On 27 March 2025, Gaia’s control team at ESA’s European Space Operations Centre switched off the spacecraft’s subsystems and sent it into a ‘retirement orbit’ around the Sun.
Though the spacecraft’s operations are now over, the scientific exploitation of Gaia’s data has just begun.
Launched in 2013, Gaia has transformed our understanding of the cosmos by mapping the positions, distances, motions, and properties of nearly two billion stars and other celestial objects. It has provided the largest, most precise multi-dimensional map of our galaxy ever created, revealing its structure and evolution in unprecedented detail.
The mission uncovered evidence of past galactic mergers, identified new star clusters, contributed to the discovery of exoplanets and black holes, mapped millions of quasars and galaxies, and tracked hundreds of thousands of asteroids and comets. The mission has also enabled the creation of the best visualisation of how our galaxy might look to an outside observer.
“The data from the Gaia satellite has and is transforming our understanding of the Milky Way, how it formed, how it has evolved and how it will evolve,” said Dr Nicholas Walton from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, lead of the Gaia UK project team. “Gaia has been in continuous operation for over 10 years, faultless, without interruption, reflecting the quality of the engineering, with significant elements of Gaia designed and built in the UK. But now it is time for its retirement. Gaia has finished its observations of the night sky. But the analysis of the Gaia mission data continues. Later in 2026 sees the next Gaia Data Release 4, to further underpin new discovery unravelling the beauty and mystery of the cosmos.”
Gaia far exceeded its planned lifetime of five years, and its fuel reserves are dwindling. The Gaia team considered how best to dispose of the spacecraft in line with ESA’s efforts to responsibly dispose of its missions.
They wanted to find a way to prevent Gaia from drifting back towards its former home near the scientifically valuable second Lagrange point (L2) of the Sun-Earth system and minimise any potential interference with other missions in the region.
“Switching off a spacecraft at the end of its mission sounds like a simple enough job,” said Gaia Spacecraft Operator Tiago Nogueira. “But spacecraft really don’t want to be switched off.
“We had to design a decommissioning strategy that involved systematically picking apart and disabling the layers of redundancy that have safeguarded Gaia for so long, because we don’t want it to reactivate in the future and begin transmitting again if its solar panels find sunlight.”
On 27 March, the Gaia control team ran through this series of passivation activities. One final use of Gaia’s thrusters moved the spacecraft away from L2 and into a stable retirement orbit around the Sun that will minimise the chance that it comes within 10 million kilometres of Earth for at least the next century.
The team then deactivated and switched off the spacecraft’s instruments and subsystems one by one, before deliberately corrupting its onboard software. The communication subsystem and the central computer were the last to be deactivated.
Gaia’s final transmission to ESOC mission control marked the conclusion of an intentional and carefully orchestrated farewell to a spacecraft that has tirelessly mapped the sky for over a decade.
Though Gaia itself has now gone silent, its contributions to astronomy will continue to shape research for decades. Its vast and expanding data archive remains a treasure trove for scientists, refining knowledge of galactic archaeology, stellar evolution, exoplanets and much more.
“No other mission has had such an impact over such a broad range of astrophysics. It continues to be the source of over 2,000 peer-reviewed papers per year, more than any other space mission,” said Gaia UK team member Dr Dafydd Wyn Evans, also from the Institute of Astronomy. “It is sad that its observing days are over, but work is continuing in Cambridge, and across Europe, to process and calibrate the final data so that Gaia will still be making its impact felt for many years in the future.”
A workhorse of galactic exploration, Gaia has charted the maps that future explorers will rely on to make new discoveries. The star trackers on ESA’s Euclid spacecraft use Gaia data to precisely orient the spacecraft. ESA’s upcoming Plato mission will explore exoplanets around stars characterised by Gaia and may follow up on new exoplanetary systems discovered by Gaia.
The Gaia control team also used the spacecraft’s final weeks to run through a series of technology tests. The team tested Gaia’s micro propulsion system under different challenging conditions to examine how it had aged over more than ten years in the harsh environment of space. The results may benefit the development of future ESA missions relying on similar propulsion systems, such as the LISA mission.
The Gaia spacecraft holds a deep emotional significance for those who worked on it. As part of its decommissioning, the names of around 1500 team members who contributed to its mission were used to overwrite some of the back-up software stored in Gaia’s onboard memory.
Personal farewell messages were also written into the spacecraft’s memory, ensuring that Gaia will forever carry a piece of its team with it as it drifts through space.
As Gaia Mission Manager Uwe Lammers put it: “We will never forget Gaia, and Gaia will never forget us.”
The Cambridge Gaia DPAC team is responsible for the analysis and generation of the Gaia photometric and spectro-photometric data products, and it also generated the Gaia photometric science alert stream for the duration of the satellite's in-flight operations.
Adapted from a media release by the European Space Agency.
The European Space Agency’s Gaia spacecraft has been powered down, after more than a decade spent gathering data that are now being used to unravel the secrets of our home galaxy.
ESA/Gaia/DPAC, Stefan Payne-WardenaarArtist's impression of the Milky Way
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BBC Inside Science
Witnessing the onset of reionization through Lyman-α emission at redshift 13
Nature, Published online: 26 March 2025; doi:10.1038/s41586-025-08779-5
Spectroscopy from the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey of a galaxy at redshift 13 shows a singular, bright emission line identified as Lyman-α, suggesting the onset of reionization only 330 Myr after the Big Bang.A lighthouse galaxy shines unexpectedly through the fog of the cosmic dawn
Nature, Published online: 26 March 2025; doi:10.1038/d41586-025-00899-2
Ultraviolet light from a galaxy observed when the Universe was just 330 million years old has intriguing implications for understanding how the first generations of stars and black holes were formed.An early hint of cosmic dawn has been seen in a distant galaxy
NASA’s Webb Sees Galaxy Mysteriously Clearing Fog of Early Universe
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NASA, ESA, CSA, JADES Collaboration, J. Witstok (University of Cambridge/University of Copenhagen), P. Jakobsen (University of Copenhagen), A. Pagan (STScI), M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
Using the unique infrared sensitivity of NASA’s 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.
The Webb telescope discovered the incredibly distant galaxy JADES-GS-z13-1, observed to exist just 330 million years after the big bang, in images taken by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) as part of the James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES). Researchers used the galaxy’s brightness in different infrared filters to estimate its redshift, which measures a galaxy’s distance from Earth based on how its light has been stretched out during its journey through expanding space.
Image A: JADES-GS-z13-1 in the GOODS-S field (NIRCam Image) The incredibly distant galaxy JADES-GS-z13-1, observed just 330 million years after the big bang, was initially discovered with deep imaging from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). Now, an international team of astronomers definitively has identified powerful hydrogen emission from this galaxy at an unexpectedly early period in the universe’s history. JADES-GS-z-13 has a redshift (z) of 13, which is an indication of its age and distance. NASA, ESA, CSA, JADES Collaboration, J. Witstok (University of Cambridge/University of Copenhagen), P. Jakobsen (University of Copenhagen), A. Pagan (STScI), M. Zamani (ESA/Webb) Image B: JADES-GS-z13-1 (NIRCam Close-Up) This image shows the galaxy JADES GS-z13-1 (the red dot at center), imaged with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) program. These data from NIRCam allowed researchers to identify GS-z13-1 as an incredibly distant galaxy, and to put an estimate on its redshift value. Webb’s unique infrared sensitivity is necessary to observe galaxies at this extreme distance, whose light has been shifted into infrared wavelengths during its long journey across the cosmos. NASA, ESA, CSA, JADES Collaboration, J. Witstok (University of Cambridge/University of Copenhagen), P. Jakobsen (University of Copenhagen), M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
The NIRCam imaging yielded an initial redshift estimate of 12.9. Seeking to confirm its extreme redshift, an international team lead by Joris Witstok of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, as well as the Cosmic Dawn Center and the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, then observed the galaxy using Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph instrument.
In the resulting spectrum, the redshift was confirmed to be 13.0. This equates to a galaxy seen just 330 million years after the big bang, a small fraction of the universe’s present age of 13.8 billion years old. But an unexpected feature stood out as well: one specific, distinctly bright wavelength of light, known as Lyman-alpha emission, radiated by hydrogen atoms. This emission was far stronger than astronomers thought possible at this early stage in the universe’s development.
“The early universe was bathed in a thick fog of neutral hydrogen,” explained Roberto Maiolino, a team member from the University of Cambridge and University College London. “Most of this haze was lifted in a process called reionization, which was completed about one billion years after the big bang. GS-z13-1 is seen when the universe was only 330 million years old, yet it shows a surprisingly clear, telltale signature of Lyman-alpha emission that can only be seen once the surrounding fog has fully lifted. This result was totally unexpected by theories of early galaxy formation and has caught astronomers by surprise.”
Image C: JADES-GS-z13-1 Spectrum Graphic NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has detected unexpected light from a distant galaxy. The galaxy JADES-GS-z13-1, observed just 330 million years after the big bang (corresponding to a redshift of z=13.05), shows bright emission from hydrogen known as Lyman-alpha emission. This is surprising because that emission should have been absorbed by a dense fog of neutral hydrogen that suffused the early universe. NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Witstok (University of Cambridge, University of Copenhagen), J. Olmsted (STScI)
Before and during the era of reionization, the immense amounts of neutral hydrogen fog surrounding galaxies blocked any energetic ultraviolet light they emitted, much like the filtering effect of colored glass. Until enough stars had formed and were able to ionize the hydrogen gas, no such light — including Lyman-alpha emission — could escape from these fledgling galaxies to reach Earth. The confirmation of Lyman-alpha radiation from this galaxy, therefore, has great implications for our understanding of the early universe.
“We really shouldn’t have found a galaxy like this, given our understanding of the way the universe has evolved,” said Kevin Hainline, a team member from the University of Arizona. “We could think of the early universe as shrouded with a thick fog that would make it exceedingly difficult to find even powerful lighthouses peeking through, yet here we see the beam of light from this galaxy piercing the veil. This fascinating emission line has huge ramifications for how and when the universe reionized.”
The source of the Lyman-alpha radiation from this galaxy is not yet known, but it may include the first light from the earliest generation of stars to form in the universe.
“The large bubble of ionized hydrogen surrounding this galaxy might have been created by a peculiar population of stars — much more massive, hotter, and more luminous than stars formed at later epochs, and possibly representative of the first generation of stars,” said Witstok. A powerful active galactic nucleus, driven by one of the first supermassive black holes, is another possibility identified by the team.
This research was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
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).
DownloadsClick any image to open a larger version.
View/Download all image products at all resolutions for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute.
View/Download the research results from the journal Nature.
Media ContactsLaura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Bethany Downer – Bethany.Downer@esawebb.org
ESA/Webb, Baltimore, Md.
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Read more about cosmic history, the early universe, and cosmic reionization.
Article: Learn about what Webb has revealed about galaxies through time.
Video: How Webb reveals the first galaxies
Related For Kids En Español Keep Exploring Related Topics James Webb Space TelescopeShare Details Last Updated Mar 26, 2025 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
Dark Energy experiment challenges Einstein's theory of Universe
Webb Telescope sees galaxy in mysteriously clearing fog of early Universe
A key goal of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has been to see further than ever before into the distant past of our Universe, when the first galaxies were forming after the Big Bang, a period know as cosmic dawn.
Researchers studying one of those very early galaxies have now made a discovery in the spectrum of its light, that challenges our established understanding of the Universe’s early history. Their results are reported in the journal Nature.
Webb discovered the incredibly distant galaxy JADES-GS-z13-1, observed at just 330 million years after the Big Bang. Researchers used the galaxy’s brightness in different infrared filters to estimate its redshift, which measures a galaxy’s distance from Earth based on how its light has been stretched out during its journey through expanding space.
The NIRCam imaging yielded an initial redshift estimate of 12.9. To confirm its extreme redshift, an international team led by Dr Joris Witstok, previously of the University of Cambridge’s Kavli Institute for Cosmology, observed the galaxy using Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument.
The resulting spectrum confirmed the redshift to be 13.0. This equates to a galaxy seen just 330 million years after the Big Bang, a small fraction of the Universe’s present age of 13.8 billion years.
But an unexpected feature also stood out: one specific, distinctly bright wavelength of light, identified as the Lyman-α emission radiated by hydrogen atoms. This emission was far stronger than astronomers thought possible at this early stage in the Universe’s development.
“The early Universe was bathed in a thick fog of neutral hydrogen,” said co-author Professor Roberto Maiolino from Cambridge’s Kavli Institute for Cosmology. “Most of this haze was lifted in a process called reionisation, which was completed about one billion years after the Big Bang.
“GS-z13-1 is seen when the Universe was only 330 million years old, yet it shows a surprisingly clear, telltale signature of Lyman-α emission that can only be seen once the surrounding fog has fully lifted. This result was totally unexpected by theories of early galaxy formation and has caught astronomers by surprise.”
Before and during the epoch of reionisation, neutral hydrogen fog surrounding galaxies blocked any energetic ultraviolet light they emitted, much like the filtering effect of coloured glass. Until enough stars had formed and were able to ionise the hydrogen gas, no such light — including Lyman-α emission — could escape from these fledgling galaxies to reach Earth.
The confirmation of Lyman-α radiation from this galaxy has great implications for our understanding of the early Universe. “We really shouldn’t have found a galaxy like this, given our understanding of the way the Universe has evolved,” said co-author Kevin Hainline from the University of Arizona. “We could think of the early Universe as shrouded with a thick fog that would make it exceedingly difficult to find even powerful lighthouses peeking through, yet here we see the beam of light from this galaxy piercing the veil.”
The source of the Lyman-α radiation from this galaxy is not yet known, but it may include the first light from the earliest generation of stars to form in the Universe. “The large bubble of ionised hydrogen surrounding this galaxy might have been created by a peculiar population of stars — much more massive, hotter and more luminous than stars formed at later epochs, and possibly representative of the first generation of stars,” said Witstok, who is now based at the Cosmic Dawn Center at the University of Copenhagen. A powerful active galactic nucleus, driven by one of the first supermassive black holes, is another possibility identified by the team.
The team plans further follow-up observations of GS-z13-1, aiming to obtain more information about the nature of this galaxy and origin of its strong Lyman-α radiation. Whatever the galaxy is concealing, it is certain to illuminate a new frontier in cosmology.
JWST is an international partnership between NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The data for this result were captured as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES).
Reference:
Joris Witstok et al. ‘Witnessing the onset of reionization through Lyman-α emission at redshift 13.’ Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-08779-5
Adapted from an ESA media release.
Astronomers have identified a bright hydrogen emission from a galaxy in the very early Universe. 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.
This result was totally unexpected by theories of early galaxy formation and has caught astronomers by surpriseRoberto MaiolinoESA/Webb, NASA, STScI, CSA, JADES CollaborationJADES-GS-z13-1 in the GOODS-S field
The text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright ©University of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.
NASA’s Webb Captures Neptune’s Auroras For First Time
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Heidi Hammel (AURA), Henrik Melin (Northumbria University), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Stefanie Milam (NASA-GSFC)
Long-sought auroral glow finally emerges under Webb’s powerful gaze
For the first time, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured bright auroral activity on Neptune. Auroras occur when energetic particles, often originating from the Sun, become trapped in a planet’s magnetic field and eventually strike the upper atmosphere. The energy released during these collisions creates the signature glow.
In the past, astronomers have seen tantalizing hints of auroral activity on Neptune, for example, in the flyby of NASA’s Voyager 2 in 1989. However, imaging and confirming the auroras on Neptune has long evaded astronomers despite successful detections on Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus. Neptune was the missing piece of the puzzle when it came to detecting auroras on the giant planets of our solar system.
“Turns out, actually imaging the auroral activity on Neptune was only possible with Webb’s near-infrared sensitivity,” said lead author Henrik Melin of Northumbria University, who conducted the research while at the University of Leicester. “It was so stunning to not just see the auroras, but the detail and clarity of the signature really shocked me.”
The data was obtained in June 2023 using Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph. In addition to the image of the planet, astronomers obtained a spectrum to characterize the composition and measure the temperature of the planet’s upper atmosphere (the ionosphere). For the first time, they found an extremely prominent emission line signifying the presence of the trihydrogen cation (H3+), which can be created in auroras. In the Webb images of Neptune, the glowing aurora appears as splotches represented in cyan.
Image A:Neptune’s Auroras – Hubble and Webb At the left, an enhanced-color image of Neptune from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. At the right, that image is combined with data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The cyan splotches, which represent auroral activity, and white clouds, are data from Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), overlayed on top of the full image of the planet from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Heidi Hammel (AURA), Henrik Melin (Northumbria University), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Stefanie Milam (NASA-GSFC)
“H3+ has a been a clear signifier on all the gas giants — Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus — of auroral activity, and we expected to see the same on Neptune as we investigated the planet over the years with the best ground-based facilities available,” explained Heidi Hammel of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Webb interdisciplinary scientist and leader of the Guaranteed Time Observation program for the Solar System in which the data were obtained. “Only with a machine like Webb have we finally gotten that confirmation.”
The auroral activity seen on Neptune is also noticeably different from what we are accustomed to seeing here on Earth, or even Jupiter or Saturn. Instead of being confined to the planet’s northern and southern poles, Neptune’s auroras are located at the planet’s geographic mid-latitudes — think where South America is located on Earth.
This is due to the strange nature of Neptune’s magnetic field, originally discovered by Voyager 2 in 1989 which is tilted by 47 degrees from the planet’s rotation axis. Since auroral activity is based where the magnetic fields converge into the planet’s atmosphere, Neptune’s auroras are far from its rotational poles.
The ground-breaking detection of Neptune’s auroras will help us understand how Neptune’s magnetic field interacts with particles that stream out from the Sun to the distant reaches of our solar system, a totally new window in ice giant atmospheric science.
From the Webb observations, the team also measured the temperature of the top of Neptune’s atmosphere for the first time since Voyager 2’s flyby. The results hint at why Neptune’s auroras remained hidden from astronomers for so long.
“I was astonished — Neptune’s upper atmosphere has cooled by several hundreds of degrees,” Melin said. “In fact, the temperature in 2023 was just over half of that in 1989.”
Through the years, astronomers have predicted the intensity of Neptune’s auroras based on the temperature recorded by Voyager 2. A substantially colder temperature would result in much fainter auroras. This cold temperature is likely the reason that Neptune’s auroras have remained undetected for so long. The dramatic cooling also suggests that this region of the atmosphere can change greatly even though the planet sits over 30 times farther from the Sun compared to Earth.
Equipped with these new findings, astronomers now hope to study Neptune with Webb over a full solar cycle, an 11-year period of activity driven by the Sun’s magnetic field. Results could provide insights into the origin of Neptune’s bizarre magnetic field, and even explain why it’s so tilted.
“As we look ahead and dream of future missions to Uranus and Neptune, we now know how important it will be to have instruments tuned to the wavelengths of infrared light to continue to study the auroras,” added Leigh Fletcher of Leicester University, co-author on the paper. “This observatory has finally opened the window onto this last, previously hidden ionosphere of the giant planets.”
These observations, led by Fletcher, were taken as part of Hammel’s Guaranteed Time Observation program 1249. The team’s results have been published in Nature Astronomy.
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).
DownloadsClick any image to open a larger version.
View/Download all image products at all resolutions for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Read the research results published in Nature Astronomy.
Media ContactsLaura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Hannah Braun- hbraun@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Henrik Melin (Northumbria University)
Related InformationView more: Webb images of Neptune
Watch: Visualization of Neptune’s tilted magnetic axis
Learn more : about Neptune
Related For Kids En Español Keep Exploring Related Topics James Webb Space TelescopeShare Details Last Updated Mar 25, 2025 Editor Stephen Sabia Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
Spectacular Northern Lights shine across the UK
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Views IM-2 on Moon’s Surface
1 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)NASA’s LRO (Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter) imaged Intuitive Machines’ IM-2 on the Moon’s surface on March 7, just under 24 hours after the spacecraft landed.
Later that day Intuitive Machines called an early end of mission for IM-2, which carried NASA technology demonstrations as part of the agency’s CLPS (Commercial Lunar Payload Services) initiative and Artemis campaign.
The Intuitive Machines IM-2 Athena lander, indicated here with a white arrow, reached the surface of the Moon on March 6, 2025, near the center of Mons Mouton. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) imaged the site at 12:54 p.m. EST on March 7.NASA/Goddard/Arizona State University
The IM-2 mission lander is located closer to the Moon’s South Pole than any previous lunar lander.
LRO is managed by NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. Launched on June 18, 2009, LRO has collected a treasure trove of data with its seven powerful instruments, making an invaluable contribution to our knowledge about the Moon. NASA is returning to the Moon with commercial and international partners to expand human presence in space and bring back new knowledge and opportunities.
More on this story from Arizona State University’s LRO Camera website
Media Contact:
Nancy N. Jones
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Glowing spiral in UK sky believed to be caused by SpaceX launch
The Falcon 9 is a reusable rocket. After launching into space, it releases what is called its payload - whatever it is carrying, such as a satellite, to complete its mission - which continues its journey into space.
The rocket then turns back around towards Earth. As it does, it ejects any leftover fuel, which freezes instantly due to the altitude in a spiral pattern caused by the rocket's movement.
Light is then reflected off the frozen fuel, making it visible on Earth.
The glowing swirl was photographed in England and Wales, and was also seen in parts of Europe.
Astronomer Allan Trow said it had appeared above Wales's Bannau Brycheiniog national park at around 20:00.
He said he had seen the phenomenon before around four years ago.
"But these are pretty rare," he told the BBC, and agreed the rocket was its likely source.
Stockport-based Sonia was already out with her telescope when she saw "a swirling galaxy that was moving across the sky".
People living almost 200 miles (321km) away also spotted the unusual glow.
Steven Hall was taking his bins out from his home in rural Suffolk when he saw what looked like "a huge Catherine wheel which appeared to have its own atmosphere around it".
He added: "It did pass my mind, is this an unexplained, unidentified flying object?"
SpaceX said on X the launch was carried out on behalf of the US government National Reconnaissance Office mission. The Kennedy Space Center also said on X the launch was a classified mission for that office.
NASA’s Webb Telescope Unmasks True Nature of the Cosmic Tornado
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Craving an ice cream sundae with a cherry on top? This random alignment of Herbig-Haro 49/50 — a frothy-looking outflow from a nearby protostar — with a multi-hued spiral galaxy may do the trick. This new composite image combining observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) provides a high-resolution view to explore the exquisite details of this bubbling activity.
Herbig-Haro objects are outflows produced by jets launched from a nearby, forming star. The outflows, which can extend for light-years, plow into a denser region of material. This creates shock waves, heating the material to higher temperatures. The material then cools by emitting light at visible and infrared wavelengths.
Image A:Herbig-Haro 49/50 (NIRCam and MIRI Image) NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed Herbig-Haro 49/50, an outflow from a nearby still-forming star, in high-resolution near- and mid-infrared light. The intricate features of the outflow, represented in reddish-orange color, provide detailed clues about how young stars form and how their jet activity affects the environment around them. Like the wake of a speeding boat, the bow shocks in this image have an arc-like appearance as the fast-moving jet from the young star slams into the surrounding dust and gas. A chance alignment in this direction of the sky provides a beautiful juxtaposition of this nearby Herbig-Haro object with a more distant spiral galaxy in the background. Herbig-Haro 49/50 gives researchers insights into the early phases of the formation of low-mass stars similar to our own Sun. In this Webb image, blue represents light at 2.0-microns (F200W), cyan represents light at 3.3-microns (F335M), green is 4.4-microns (F444W), orange is 4.7-microns (F470N), and red is 7.7-microns (F770W).NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
When NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope observed it in 2006, scientists nicknamed Herbig-Haro 49/50 (HH 49/50) the “Cosmic Tornado” for its helical appearance, but they were uncertain about the nature of the fuzzy object at the tip of the “tornado.” With its higher imaging resolution, Webb provides a different visual impression of HH 49/50 by revealing fine features of the shocked regions in the outflow, uncovering the fuzzy object to be a distant spiral galaxy, and displaying a sea of distant background galaxies.
Image B:Herbig-Haro 49/50 (Spitzer and Webb Images Side-by-Side) This side-by-side comparison shows a Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Array Camera image of HH 49/50 (left) versus a Webb image of the same object (right) using the NIRCam (Near-infrared Camera) instrument and MIRI (Mid-infrared Instrument). The Webb image shows intricate details of the heated gas and dust as the protostellar jet slams into the material. Webb also resolves the “fuzzy” object located at the tip of the outflow into a distant spiral galaxy. The Spitzer image shows 3.6-micron light in blue, the 4.5-micron in green, and the 8.0-micron in red (IRAC1, IRAC2, IRAC4). In the Webb image, blue represents light at 2.0-microns (F200W), cyan represents light at 3.3-microns (F335M), green is 4.4-microns (F444W), orange is 4.7-microns (F470N), and red is 7.7-microns (F770W).NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL, SSC
HH 49/50 is located in the Chamaeleon I Cloud complex , one of the nearest active star formation regions in our Milky Way, which is creating numerous low-mass stars similar to our Sun. This cloud complex is likely similar to the environment that our Sun formed in. Past observations of this region show that the HH 49/50 outflow is moving away from us at speeds of 60-190 miles per second (100-300 kilometers per second) and is just one feature of a larger outflow.
Webb’s NIRCam and MIRI observations of HH 49/50 trace the location of glowing hydrogen molecules, carbon monoxide molecules, and energized grains of dust, represented in orange and red, as the protostellar jet slams into the region. Webb’s observations probe details on small spatial scales that will help astronomers to model the properties of the jet and understand how it is affecting the surrounding material.
The arc-shaped features in HH 49/50, similar to a water wake created by a speeding boat, point back to the source of this outflow. Based on past observations, scientists suspect that a protostar known as Cederblad 110 IRS4 is a plausible driver of the jet activity. Located roughly 1.5 light-years away from HH 49/50 (off the lower right corner of the Webb image), CED 110 IRS4 is a Class I protostar. Class I protostars are young objects (tens of thousands to a million years old) in the prime time of gaining mass. They usually have a discernable disk of material surrounding them that is still falling onto the protostar. Scientists recently used Webb’s NIRCam and MIRI observations to study this protostar and obtain an inventory of the icy composition of its environment.
These detailed Webb images of the arcs in HH 49/50 can more precisely pinpoint the direction to the jet source, but not every arc points back in the same direction. For example, there is an unusual outcrop feature (at the top right of the main outflow) which could be another chance superposition of a different outflow, related to the slow precession of the intermittent jet source. Alternatively, this feature could be a result of the main outflow breaking apart.
Video Caption:This visualization examines the three-dimensional structure of Herbig-Haro 49/50 (HH 49/50) as seen in near- and mid-infrared light by the James Webb Space Telescope. HH 49/50 is an outflow produced by the jet of a nearby still-forming star in the Chamaeleon I Cloud complex, one of the nearest active star formation regions in our Milky Way. At a distance of 625 light-years from Earth, this new composite infrared image (using data from program 6558, PI: M. Garcia Marin) allows researchers to examine its details on small spatial scales like never before.
Visualization Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. DePasquale (STScI), L. Hustak (STScI), G. Bacon (STScI), R. Crawford (STScI), D. Kirshenblat (STScI), C. Nieves (STScI), A. Pagan (STScI), F. Summers (STScI).
The galaxy that appears by happenstance at the tip of HH 49/50 is a much more distant, face-on spiral galaxy. It has a prominent central bulge represented in blue that shows the location of older stars. The bulge also shows hints of “side lobes” suggesting that this could be a barred-spiral galaxy. Reddish clumps within the spiral arms show the locations of warm dust and groups of forming stars. The galaxy even displays evacuated bubbles in these dusty regions, similar to nearby galaxies observed by Webb as part of the PHANGS program.
Webb has captured these two unassociated objects in a lucky alignment. Over thousands of years, the edge of HH 49/50 will move outwards and eventually appear to cover up the distant galaxy.
Want more? Take a closer look at the image, “fly through” it in a visualization, and compare Webb’s image to the Spitzer Space Telescope’s.
Herbig-Haro 49/50 is located about 625 light-years from Earth in the constellation Chamaeleon.
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.
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Media ContactsLaura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Quyen Hart – qhart@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Images – Webb images of other protostar outflows – L483, HH 46/47, and HH 211
Animation Video – “Exploring Star and Planet Formation”
Interactive – Explore the jets emitted by young stars in multiple wavelengths: ViewSpace Interactive
Article – Read more about Herbig-Haro objects
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