Back Bay Amateur Astronomers: A group of amateur astronomers dedicated to "Bringing Astronomy to the People of Hampton Roads".
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ALT This image shows the most massive planet-hosting star pair to date, b Centauri, and its giant planet b Centauri b. The star pair, which has a total mass of at least six times that of the Sun, is the bright object in the top left corner of the image, the bright and dark rings around it being optical artifacts. The planet, visible as a bright dot in the lower right of the frame, is 10 times as massive as Jupiter and orbits the pair at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the Sun. The other bright dot in the image (top right) is a background star. By taking different images at different times, astronomers were able to distinguish the planet from the background stars. Credit: ESO/Janson et al.
ALT Graphic titled “Hot Gas Giant Exoplanet WASP-96 b Atmosphere Composition, NIRISS Single-Object Slitless Spectroscopy.” The graphic shows the transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-96 b captured using Webb's NIRISS Single-Object Slitless Spectroscopy with an illustration of the planet and its star in the background. The data points are plotted on a graph of amount of light blocked in parts per million versus wavelength of light in microns. A curvy blue line represents a best-fit model. Four prominent peaks visible in the data and model are labeled “water, H2O.”
ALT NASA engineer Ernie Wright, dressed in contamination control gear, faces the first six flight-ready primary mirror segments from the James Webb Space Telescope. The gold-coated, hexagonal segments, arranged in a flower-like pattern, are being prepped to begin final cryogenic testing at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. The testing chamber entrance forms a circular frame, drawing attention to the mirror segments and Ernie Wright in the exact middle of the image.
ALT A screenshot of the NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) Twitter account being "blocked" by the @NASAWebb account
ALT Screenshots of the NASA Moon (@NASAMoon) and NASA Earth (@NASAEarth) Twitter accounts being "blocked" by the @NASAWebb account
ALT the rear of a telescope at night, with the sky rising above.
ALT A comparison of several Solar System object in relation to the Oort Cloud comet C/2014 UN271. The smallest shown, 4.34KM-wide Comet 67P is shown at bottom left with the bodies increasing in diameter towards the right-hand side. The icy globe of Saturn's moon Enceladus looms in the background at 514km across.
