Tracy Beck

Flying through Dulles Airport near D.C.? If you’re taking the Metro, expect to be awed by almost 40 recently installed images from #NASAWebb, paired with more than 30 from the ever-active Hubble, on your way to the main terminal: https://bit.ly/4qPfl7m #wmata 🔭 🧪

A three-panel image, two at the top, and one stretched across the bottom. At top left, two spiral galaxies are widely separated against the black background of space. At top right, two face-on spiral galaxies are close together. Their spiral arms appear stretched toward each other. At bottom, two spiral galaxies have collided, resulting in a broad X-shaped patch of milky white. Mottled clouds of dark brown dust are superimposed.

NEW: Astronomers used Hubble to re-examined the prediction that the Milky Way galaxy will eventually collide with the Andromeda galaxy. They find there is only a fifty-fifty chance the two galaxies will smash together within the next 10 billion years: bit.ly/3YzymOx 🔭 🧪

NEW: Those undulations aren’t clouds—they’re Jupiter’s aurora as seen by #NASAWebb. Webb observed light from a particular molecule, represented in orange, and found that the planet’s aurora fluctuates on timescales of minutes or seconds: webbtelescope.pub/4kbsB20 🔭 🧪

YouTube video by Space Telescope Science Institute Carina Nebula Complex to Cosmic Cliffs — James Webb Space Telescope and NASA's Universe of Learning

Journey through the Carina Nebula Complex, home of the Cosmic Cliffs, in this new video produced by NASA’s Universe of Learning. Using stunning cinematic visuals, it lets you explore star formation in different wavelengths of light. 🔭 🧪

Experience the Cosmic Cliffs like never before! #NASAWebb’s iconic image of dusty “mountains” and “valleys” is featured in a new 3D visualization from NASA’s Universe of Learning: webbtelescope.pub/4jRHIh9 🔭 🧪

Haha… no I don’t drink soda anymore.

Happy PKU Awareness Month!

To celebrate PKU awareness month- here’s a photo of my breakfast protein. PKU’ers cannot metabolize the amino acid phenylalanine. We have to follow a low protein diet and take phenylalanine-free medical formula.

I eat 8-10gm of protein with 75 of these pills a day.

YouTube video by Space Telescope Science Institute The Shape of Taurus in Three Dimensions

Take a look at the stars of the Taurus constellation in three dimensions. The familiar pattern on the sky distorts into a whole new perspective. ✨ 🔭 🧪
youtu.be/eXypAmN2fyM

Horizontal scene shows a range of orange, brown, and bright red dust mainly along the left side and top. The right edge is darkest, where there is the least dust. A thick pillar starts at left and ends near the middle. At the end of the pillar is a protrusion that looks a little like a pointing finger. The center has translucent layers of bright purple and white gas. The scene is speckled with stars. The largest stars, which appear at top left and throughout the middle, are blue and each have four bright diffraction spikes. Background stars are orange and red. The reddest stars appear most concentrated toward the right and are the smallest.

This Hubble image shows massive stars in Gum 29, which are unleashing ultraviolet light and hurricane-force winds that etch away the enveloping gas cloud.

The result? Pillars, ridges, and filaments of gas and dust!

Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI. 🔭 🧪

Jed the Fish was always my KROQ favorite… best laugh ever and I loved all the weird/new stuff he would play.

An edge-on view of a protoplanetary disk around a newly formed star, Herbig-Haro 30. The horizontal brown disk divides two concave, blue disks. The bottom disk is slightly more diffuse, with some filaments of gas and dust trailing off toward the bottom left, while the top disk is uniform. A white glow, indicating the central star, emanates from the center of these disks. Two mostly red jets of high velocity gas shoot in both vertical directions. The jet shooting downward is diffuse and quickly fades close to the center. In comparison, the jet shooting upward is far clearer, making it all the way to the top.

The jets seen in Herbig-Haro 30, observed by #NASAWebb, are a part of the star formation process. As the star gathers material, much of that material is launched back out along the star’s poles as high-velocity jets.

Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, Tazaki, et al. 🔭 🧪

NEW: The Crab Nebula—the result of a supernova in 1054—originally appeared as a bright, new star that was visible even in the daytime. Learn more about this storied supernova remnant on a poster of this observation from #NASAWebb: webbtelescope.pub/41VJ6rf 🔭 🧪

Kamala Harris warned the American people that this would happen . . .

Happy springtime moment of zen. 🧘‍♀️ #bloomscrolling #springtime

The image that changed our view of the Universe forever In 1995, the Hubble Space Telescope sent back incredible image data that would change the world of astronomy.

Dr. Robert Williams, former director of the Space Telescope Science Institute, recalls when the Hubble Space Telescope "looked back in time" and peered into a small patch of empty sky for ten days straight. 🔭 🧪

A small red dot is in the middle of the image. To its upper left is a face-on spiral galaxy, and to its lower right is an edge-on spiral galaxy. A handful of other small background galaxies are seen against the black background of space.

Using the unique infrared sensitivity of #NASAWebb, researchers can examine ancient galaxies to probe secrets of the early universe. Recently, a bright hydrogen emission from a galaxy in an unexpectedly early time in the universe’s history has been identified. (1/4) 🧵 🔭 🧪

Woman with blue sky and puffy white clouds in the background, shown chest up. She has short blonde wind-swept hair. She is wearing dark sunglasses and a green t-shirt with a V- neck and short sleeves.

STScI Outreach Scientist Dr. Carol Christian was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She was honored for exceptional leadership in bringing astronomy to a broader range of the public, notably the seeing impaired: bit.ly/4hFWtSj 🔭 🧪

A two-panel horizontal image. On the left is Neptune observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. It is a blue circle, tilted about 25 degrees to the left. There are white smudges at 7 o’clock and just above 5 o’clock. At right is an opposing view of the planet, using data from Hubble and Webb. It is a multi-hued blue orb. There are white smudges in the same spots as the image on the left, but also at the center of the planet and at the top. There are cyan smudges vertically along the right side, and the top of these areas are more translucent than the bottom.

NEW: For the first time, astronomers were able to capture bright auroral activity on Neptune, thanks to #NASAWebb’s infrared capabilities: webbtelescope.pub/424vcTI 🔭 🧪

#NASAWebb provides high-resolution details of Herbig-Haro 49/50—an outflow from a nearby still-forming star and background galaxies. Webb reveals the fuzzy object at the tip of the outflow in the Spitzer image is actually a distant spiral galaxy: webbtelescope.pub/4iGQg9K 🔭 🧪

More happy flowers! #bloomscrolling

Lovely spring weekend! #bloomscrolling

Last nights sun-earth-moon alignment… from the Blue Ghost on the Moon. I wonder if this is the first solar eclipse filmed on the moon… hmm..

Happy Pi Day!

Ugh, in only 50 days.
With tariffs on our closest trading neighbors and mass layoffs in the federal workforce, this is only going to get worse. Possibly much worse. 😔
Are we great again yet?

YouTube video by FOBBV CAM Big Bear Bald Eagle Live Nest - Cam 1

Eagle Nest Cam is some of the best entertainment in the world right now! m.youtube.com/watch?v=B4-L...

At the centre is a thin vertical cloud known as Lynds 483 (L483) that is roughly shaped like an hourglass with irregular edges. The lower lobe is slightly cut off. The top lobe is seen in full, petering out at the top.

New JWST image dropped: actively forming star system Lynds 483 (NIRCam image)

Credit:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
esawebb.org/news/weic2503

Promotional image for JWST Summer School

Applications are now open for the inaugural #JWST Summer School from August 4 to August 15, 2025. Submit your application by April 4, 2025. Get the details: ow.ly/um9J50VbUla

Moment of zen 🤗.