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Science
What Is The Human Composting Industry Trying To Grow?
150
Comments
Nicholas Russell
September 13, 2024
Science
Neither Elon Musk Nor Anybody Else Will Ever Colonize Mars
566
Comments
Albert Burneko
September 11, 2024
The Defector Crewneck Sweatshirt Is Back In Stock
Bad news: It's getting colder. Good news: The best way to cover your forearms has returned. The critically acclaimed Defector crewneck sweatshirt has been restocked in all sizes. Now's the time to get one of our most popular items, printed with union labor in the USA.
Science
No Need To Worry About Eerie, Mysterious “Pulsing” Noise Coming From Janky Boeing Starliner, NASA Insists
257
Comments
Barry Petchesky
September 3, 2024
Science
Boeing Starliner Astronauts Electively Spending Five More Months In Space To Hitch Ride In Different Vehicle Due To Preference For Not Dying
203
Comments
Albert Burneko
August 26, 2024
Science
Extremely Heavy And Incredibly Far; Or, The Saga Of The Strangest Rock At Stonehenge
129
Comments
Sabrina Imbler
August 22, 2024
Science
Point/Counterpoint: Monkeys Typing Shakespeare
203
Comments
Kathryn Xu
and
Barry Petchesky
August 8, 2024
This Is So Stupid
Do Not Say The Boeing Starliner Astronauts Are Stranded In Space, Which They Cannot Presently Return From Due To Problems With Their Spacecraft
203
Comments
Albert Burneko
August 1, 2024
Science
Don’t Bury Me At Biscuit Basin
101
Comments
Barry Petchesky
July 24, 2024
Wings Week
You Motherfuckers Forgot About Dayton
385
Comments
Amy Schneider
July 19, 2024
Science
NASA Must Put Me On The Simulated Mars Mission, To Test The Astronauts’ Patience
100
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Barry Petchesky
July 7, 2024
Science
What If We’re Stuck Down Here?
205
Comments
Barry Petchesky
June 18, 2024
Science
Bill Anders First Saw The Earth
88
Comments
Barry Petchesky
June 9, 2024
Science
Can We Exhume Gender From The Long-Dead?
77
Comments
Sabrina Imbler
May 9, 2024
Science
Suddenly Every Deodorant Company Wants To Get In My Pants
232
Comments
Drew Magary
April 30, 2024
Science
The Closer We Look The Smaller We Get
110
Comments
Barry Petchesky
April 30, 2024
Sports Highlight Of The Day
The Sports Highlight Of The Day Is The First Honeybee Ever To Pull A String
43
Comments
Barry Petchesky
April 7, 2024
This Is So Stupid
Defector Status Report: East Coast Earthquake
318
Comments
Defector Staff
April 5, 2024
NFL
What Time Will Football Start On The Moon?
116
Comments
Ray Ratto
April 3, 2024
Science
Fusion Researchers Set New Record For Ignoring My Wish To Be Consumed By The Heat Of Seven Suns
105
Comments
Chris Thompson
April 3, 2024
Science
Solar Eclipses: No Longer Scary, Still Astonishingly Cool
232
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Paola Rosa-Aquino
April 1, 2024
Science
Vibrations From “Interstellar Meteor” Actually From Local Truck; Or, Fact-Checking The Celebrity Scientist
224
Comments
Sabrina Imbler
March 22, 2024
Science
I Think I Found The Problem Here: The Rocket Blew Up
195
Comments
Barry Petchesky
March 13, 2024
Science
Landing On The Moon Isn’t Getting Any Easier
182
Comments
Barry Petchesky
February 23, 2024
Science
I Bonked My Head On The Moon
157
Comments
SLIM
January 30, 2024
Science
The Little Mars Helicopter That Could
81
Comments
Barry Petchesky
January 29, 2024
Newer
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![The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has captured the sharpest infrared images to date of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. These observations show a part of the iconic nebula in a whole new light, capturing its complexity with unprecedented spatial resolution. Webb’s new images show part of the sky in the constellation Orion (The Hunter), in the western side of the Orion B molecular cloud. Rising from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as Barnard 33, which resides roughly 1300 light-years away. The nebula formed from a collapsing interstellar cloud of material, and glows because it is illuminated by a nearby hot star. The gas clouds surrounding the Horsehead have already dissipated, but the jutting pillar is made of thick clumps of material that is harder to erode. Astronomers estimate that the Horsehead has about five million years left before it too disintegrates. Webb’s new view focuses on the illuminated edge of the top of the nebula’s distinctive dust and gas structure. The Horsehead Nebula is a well-known photon-dominated region, or PDR. In such a region ultraviolet light from young, massive stars creates a mostly neutral, warm area of gas and dust between the fully ionised gas surrounding the massive stars and the clouds in which they are born. This ultraviolet radiation strongly influences the gas chemistry of these regions and acts as the most important source of heat. These regions occur where interstellar gas is dense enough to remain neutral, but not dense enough to prevent the penetration of far-ultraviolet light from massive stars. The light emitted from such PDRs provides a unique tool to study the physical and chemical processes that drive the evolution of interstellar matter in our galaxy, and throughout the Universe from the early era of vigorous star formation to the present day. Owing to its proximity and its nearly edge-on geometry, the Horsehead Nebula is an ideal target for astronomers to study the physical structures of PDRs and the evolution of the chemical characteristics of the gas and dust within their respective environments, and the transition regions between them. It is considered one of the best objects in the sky to study how radiation interacts with interstellar matter. This image was captured with Webb’s NIRCam (Near-InfraRed Camera) instrument. [Image description: At the bottom of the image a small portion of the Horsehead Nebula is seen close-in, as a curved wall of thick, smoky gas and dust. Above the nebula various distant stars and galaxies can be seen up to the top of the image. One star is very bright and large, with six long diffraction spikes that cross the image. The background fades from a dark red colour above the nebula to black.]](https://lede-admin.defector.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/28/2024/04/STScI-01HV4CG0EACM1MC07E10X19KNX.jpg?resize=2880%2C1920)
