Our Webb Space Telescope captures a cosmic ring.
The team behind our upcoming Psyche mission.
And the unique thing about a star that was ripped apart by a black hole.
A few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA!
Our James Webb Space Telescope has observed the Ring Nebula
in unprecedented detail.
Formed by a dying star throwing off its outer layers as it runs out of fuel,
the Ring Nebula is one of the best-known examples of a planetary nebula.
It is relatively close to Earth at roughly 2,200 light-years away.
Our Psyche spacecraft is targeted for launch no earlier than Oct. 5
to a metal-rich asteroid, also named Psyche.
A new video series called, “Behind the Spacecraft” highlights several members of
the Psyche team and their contributions to the mission.
The videos are being released on several of our Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s
social media platforms.
The mission could help answer fundamental questions
about how rocky planets like Earth formed, and about the formation
of our solar system.
Astronomers used our Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton
to study material believed to be from a star that was ripped apart by a
giant black hole – an event being called ASASSN-14li.
The relative amount of nitrogen to carbon astronomers found
indicates that the material weighs about three times the mass of our Sun –
which would make the star in ASASSN-14li one of the most massive ever seen
ripped apart by a black hole to date.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team has begun integrating and testing
the spacecraft’s harness – the electrical cabling that functions as the telescope’s
nervous system.
The harness provides power and commands to Roman’s instruments,
enables different parts of the telescope to communicate with one another,
and helps the central computer monitor the telescope’s functions.
Roman will survey billions of cosmic objects and help untangle mysteries
like dark energy following its launch by May 2027.
That’s what’s up this week @NASA.
For more on these and other stories, follow us on the web at nasa.gov/twan.