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05/13/2022
No, this is not a test.
You are looking at THE first image of the supermassive black hole at the heart of our galaxy the Milky Way. This image was captured using the Event Horizon Telescope — a planet-scale array of radio telescopes that emerged from decades of NSF support and was forged through international collaboration. Learn more: https://bit.ly/38rC85z.
01/28/2022
More updates about the James Webb Space Telescope!
🌟 Star light, star bright…the first star Webb will see is HD 84406, a Sun-like star about 260 light years away, located in the constellation Ursa Major. While it will be too bright for Webb to study once the telescope is in focus, it’s a perfect target for Webb to gather engineering data & start its 3-month mirror alignment process.
This week, not only did Webb arrive at its new home of L2, but our team also turned on our high-gain antenna. The high-gain antenna will help enable a much higher data rate than the radio band Webb had been using until now, and will eventually allow Webb to send back all its science images & data.
Look back on our successful first month after launch by reading our latest blog post, with a contribution by project manager Bill Ochs: https://go.nasa.gov/3Hdq3Nz
01/26/2022
The city lights of Northern Europe are crowned by a faint aurora and an atmospheric glow in this picture from the space station. Details... https://flic.kr/p/2mZ3fs6
More updates on the James Webb Space Telescope! It's now at L2, its home to look out at the universe around us!
01/20/2022
Update on the James Webb telescope that launched a few weeks ago!
Our mirror segment deployments are complete! 🎉
Using motors, each segment was moved out about half the length of a paper clip to clear the mirrors from their launch restraints and give each segment enough space for mirror alignment.
🐞 🎶 You say you want a revolution? How about over a million? 's mirror motors made over a million revolutions this week as we moved all 132 actuators on the backs of the primary mirror segments and the secondary mirror!
💪 Fun fact: Our mirrors are made of beryllium. Even against beryllium’s bending stiffness per weight, which is six times greater than that of ordinary steel, the motors can actually individually shape the curvature of each mirror segment! [This fact was updated on January 25, based on our updated blog post.]
Read more: https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/01/19/webb-mirror-segment-deployments-complete/
Where Is Webb? 👉 webb.nasa.gov/whereiswebb
Note: This is an image from 2016 when the telescope mirrors were at NASA Goddard. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn
The EKU Hummel Planetarium is temporarily closed. Please continue to monitor this page for updates at a later date.
We will continue to share posts from this page in the meantime. Thank you.
Trivia Tuesday answer
27 million degrees Fahrenheit
What is the core temperature of the sun?
a. 30 million degrees Fahrenheit
b. 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit
c. 100 degrees Fahrenheit
d. 27 million degrees Fahrenheit