NASA Universe Rumbles

The Monkey Head Nebula (also known as NGC 2174) is a star-forming region in which bright, newborn stars near the center of the nebula illuminate the surrounding gas with energetic radiation. This radiation, along with strong stellar winds, erodes away the lower-density gas. Pockets of higher density gas resist this erosion, and form pillars and peaks along the inner edge of the roughly circular cloud. This video showcases visible and infrared light views of a collection of pillars along one edge of the nebula. The sequence begins with a view of the night sky near the constellation of Gemini and Orion. The view zooms through observations from the Digitized Sky Survey 2 to reveal a Hubble Space Telescope visible-light view of the top of this region of pillars. A cross-fade transitions not only between Hubble's visible and infrared light views but also from a two-dimensional image to a three-dimensional sculpted model of the region. The camera then pulls back to reveal the landscape of evaporating peaks of gas and dust surrounded by stars. Note that the visualization is intended to be a reasonable interpretation (not scientifically accurate) and that distances within the model are significantly compressed.

Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have seen that the famous giant black hole in Messier 87, or M87, is propelling particles at speeds greater than 99% of the speed of light. The Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration released the first image of a black hole with observations of Messier 87 last April, making it arguably the Universe's most famous black hole. Meanwhile, astronomers have studied a jet of high energy particles — powered by the black hole — blasting out of the center of M87 in radio, optical, and X-ray light for many years. Over its two decades of operations, Chandra has observed M87 many times. And now, researchers used Chandra's data to determine that sections of the jet in M87 are moving at nearly the speed of light. While astronomers have observed features in the M87 jet blasting away from its black hole this quickly at radio and optical wavelengths for many years, this provides the strongest evidence yet that actual particles are traveling this fast. When matter gets close enough to a black hole, it enters into a swirling pattern called an accretion disk. Some material from the inner part of the accretion disk falls onto the black hole and some of it is redirected away from the black hole in the form of narrow beams, or jets, of material along magnetic field lines. Because the material can fall onto the black hole erratically, the jets are made of clumps or knots that can sometimes be identified with Chandra and other telescopes. A team of astronomers recently used Chandra observations from 2012 and 2017 to track the motion of two X-ray knots located within the jet about 900 and 2,500 light years away from the black hole. The X-ray data show motion with apparent speeds of 6.3 times the speed of light for the X-ray knot closer to the black hole and 2.4 times the speed of light for the other. While this sounds like it breaks the laws of physics, it's actually an illusion that occurs when objects are traveling close to the speed of light along a direction that is close to our line of sight. The jet travels almost as quickly toward us as the light it generates, giving the illusion that the jet's motion is much more rapid than the speed of light. In the case of M87, the jet is pointing close to our direction, resulting in these exotic apparent speeds. The Chandra data are an excellent complement to what the Event Horizon Telescope, or EHT, found. The jet Chandra sees is five hundred thousand times larger in size than the ring imaged by the EHT. Another difference is that the EHT observed M87 over six days in April 2017, giving a recent snapshot of the black hole. The Chandra observations investigate ejected material within the jet that was launched from the black hole hundreds and thousands of years earlier. Astronomers are looking forward to seeing what else these telescopes can learn about black holes in the years to come.

Super-high resolution image of Andromeda from Hubble (NASA/ESA)

The majestic universe and all its wonders and mysteries mixed with electronic/orchestral/rock music.

In this movie, the black hole is spinning rapidly (almost at the maximum possible rate). The starfield is taken from real observational data. The movie starts one thousand gravitational radii away from the black hole and ends at the event horizon, where eventually all light focuses into a single point and vanishes. Try looking around as you approach, or you'll miss it!

This Zoom video sequence starts with a broad view of the Milky Way. We then dive into the dusty central region to look closer. A 4-million solar mass black hole lurks, surrounded by a swarm of stars orbiting rapidly. We first see the stars in motion, thanks to 26 years of data from ESO's telescopes. We then see an even closer view of one of the stars, S2, passing very close to the black hole in May 2018. The final part shows a simulation of the motions of the stars.

Before modern telescopes, humans could only imagine what the surface of the sun and the planets looked like. Now advanced technology has made it possible to get in close, and take images of the Sun and the planets deep in our solar system. Now get ready to see the solar system as you’ve never seen it before, and see images that were so good they shocked astronomers.

The search for ancient life. Planetary evolution. Preparing for future human exploration. There are so many reasons to study the Red Planet. If you're craving more, here’s what you need to know about Mars!

On April 17, 2016, an active region on the sun’s right side released a mid-level solar flare, captured here by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. This solar flare caused moderate radio blackouts, according to NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center. Scientists study active regions – which are areas of intense magnetism – to better understand why they sometimes erupt with such flares. This video was captured in several wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light, a type of light that is typically invisible to our eyes but is color-coded in SDO images for easy viewing.

Eruptive events on the sun can be wildly different. Some come just with a solar flare, some with an additional ejection of solar material called a coronal mass ejection (CME), and some with complex moving structures in association with changes in magnetic field lines that loop up into the sun's atmosphere, the corona. On July 19, 2012, an eruption occurred on the sun that produced all three. A moderately powerful solar flare exploded on the sun's lower right-hand limb, sending out light and radiation. Next came a CME, which shot off to the right out into space. And then, the sun treated viewers to one of its dazzling magnetic displays -- a phenomenon known as coronal rain. Over the course of the next day, hot plasma in the corona cooled and condensed along strong magnetic fields in the region. Magnetic fields, themselves, are invisible, but the charged plasma is forced to move along the lines, showing up brightly in the extreme ultraviolet wavelength of 304 Angstroms, which highlights material at a temperature of about 50,000 Kelvin. This plasma acts as a tracer, helping scientists watch the dance of magnetic fields on the sun, outlining the fields as it slowly falls back to the solar surface. The footage in this video was collected by the Solar Dynamics Observatory's AIA instrument. SDO collected one frame every 12 seconds, and the movie plays at 30 frames per second, so each second in this video corresponds to 6 minutes of real-time. The video covers 12:30 a.m. EDT to 10:00 p.m. EDT on July 19, 2012. Music: "Thunderbolt" by Lars Leonhard, courtesy of the artist. http://www.lars-leonhard.de/

A new immersive, 360-degree, ultra-high-definition visualization allows viewers to view the center of our Galaxy as if they were sitting in the position of the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole (Sgr A*). By combining supercomputer simulations with Chandra data, the visualization shows the effects of dozens of massive stellar giants with fierce winds blowing off their surfaces in the region covering a few light years surrounding Sgr A*. Blue and cyan represent X-ray emission from hot gas with temperatures of tens of millions of degrees, while the red emission shows ultraviolet emission from moderately dense regions of cooler gas with temperatures of tens of thousands of degrees, and yellow shows the cooler gas with the highest densities.

Journey to far-flung corners of the universe on a relaxing 360 space flight, and watch sunrise and sunset on distant worlds as its northern lights dance across the sky. Enjoy!