How will the James Webb Space Telescope change how we see the universe? Ask an expert!

The James Webb Space Telescope is launching on December 22, 2021. Webb’s revolutionary technology will explore every phase of cosmic history—from within our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe, to everything in between. Postdoctoral Research Associate Naomi Rowe-Gurney will be taking your questions about Webb and Webb science in an Answer Time session on Tuesday, December 14 from noon to 1 p.m EST here on our Tumblr!

🚨 Ask your questions now by visiting http://nasa.tumblr.com/ask.

Dr. Naomi Rowe-Gurney recently completed her PhD at the University of Leicester and is now working at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center as a postdoc through Howard University. As a planetary scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope, she’s an expert on the atmospheres of the ice giants in our solar system — Uranus and Neptune — and how the Webb telescope will be able to learn more about them.

The James Webb Space Telescope – fun facts:

Webb is so big it has to fold origami-style to fit into its rocket and will unfold like a “Transformer” in space.

Webb is about 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope and designed to see the infrared, a region Hubble can only peek at.

With unprecedented sensitivity, it will peer back in time over 13.5 billion years to see the first galaxies born after the Big Bang––a part of space we’ve never seen.

It will study galaxies near and far, young and old, to understand how they evolve.

Webb will explore distant worlds and study the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars, known as exoplanets, searching for chemical fingerprints of possible habitability.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space!

when galaxies have close encounters by Hubble

NGC 3582, Liberty 

STEM Statistics to put the Gender Gap into Perspective

☆ women make up roughly 17 percent of the physics workforce, but at the current rate of women working and studying physics, it would take 258 years to achieve gender balance.

☆ good news though! more women are graduating with degrees in STEM. for a rough estimate, the number grew from just over 140,000 in 2009 to over 200,000 in 2016.

☆ the myth of the "math brain" is a destroyer of confidence in girls. most girls lose confidence in math in third grade, while boys are more likely to feel they are strong in math.

☆ in 2019, about one-third of non-binary and transgender scientists reported discrimination for their sex or gender identity. about one-fifth of transgender scientists considered leaving their job.

☆ among STEM company CEOs, only 3 percent are women.

☆ 19 of the 616 nobel prizes awarded between 1901 and 2019 in physics, science, medicine and physiology were awarded to women.

Squidolus [Day:1611 Hour:12]

Comet Neowise l Petr Horalex l Suchy Vrch, Czech Republic

Spiral Galaxy NGC 1350 : This gorgeous island universe lies about 85 million light-years distant in the southern constellation Fornax. Inhabited by young blue star clusters, the tightly wound spiral arms of NGC 1350 seem to join in a circle around the galaxy's large, bright nucleus, giving it the appearance of a cosmic eye. In fact, NGC 1350 is about 130,000 light-years across. That makes it as large or slightly larger than the Milky Way. For earth-based astronomers, NGC 1350 is seen on the outskirts of the Fornax cluster of galaxies, but its estimated distance suggests that it is not itself a cluster member. Of course, the bright spiky stars in the foreground of this telescopic field of view are members of our own spiral Milky Way galaxy. via NASA

2021 Perseid Meteor Shower

Photo taken by Alvin Wu

Follow @milkywaychaser for more Milky Way photography wonders.

Jupiter —tumultuous clouds

IC 1795, Fish

Saturn-rise on Titan — this moon of Saturn is larger than the planet Mercury. Titan's surface is sculpted by flowing liquid methane and ethane, carving river channels and filling great lakes. No other world in the solar system, except Earth, has that amount of liquid activity on its surface.

Readings taken by the Huygens probe in 2005, strongly suggest vast amounts of liquid water deep below the surface — making Titan one of the very few worlds in the solar system where extraterrestrial life may be evolving.~NASA {art: Taudalpoi, animation: beauty-funny-trippy}

The Blue Band

This amazing image captured by Angel Yu and featured on today's APOD, is a real image, although the colours have been highlighted to show up the blue band, something that is otherwise hard to spot.

When the moon is eclipsed by the Earth, the shadow of the Earth reduces the light that can get to the moon, causing the upper red portion of the moon. The lower area of the moon is the natural colour directly illuminated by the Sun.

In-between both, the blue colour of light that is moving from the sun, through the atmosphere of the Earth and onwards to the moon.

Crescent Moon l ©

Cygnus Mosaic 2010 2020 : In brush strokes of interstellar dust and glowing gas, this beautiful skyscape is painted across the plane of our Milky Way Galaxy near the northern end of the Great Rift and the constellation Cygnus the Swan. Composed over a decade with 400 hours of image data, the broad mosaic spans an impressive 28x18 degrees across the sky. Alpha star of Cygnus, bright, hot, supergiant Deneb lies at the left. Crowded with stars and luminous gas clouds Cygnus is also home to the dark, obscuring Northern Coal Sack Nebula and the star forming emission regions NGC 7000, the North America Nebula and IC 5070, the Pelican Nebula, just left and a little below Deneb. Many other nebulae and star clusters are identifiable throughout the cosmic scene. Of course, Deneb itself is also known to northern hemisphere skygazers for its place in two asterisms, marking a vertex of the Summer Triangle, the top of the Northern Cross. via NASA

A Blue Banded Blood Moon via NASA https://ift.tt/32NNlue

Planetary Nebula NGC 2818 taken on November 27 in 2008

Swirls of Dust in the Flame Nebula