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        {
            "id": 31291,
            "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/31291/",
            "result_type": "Hyperwall Visual",
            "release_date": "2024-06-13T00:00:00-04:00",
            "title": "Webb Identifies Tiniest Free-Floating Brown Dwarf",
            "description": "This image from the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the central portion of the star cluster IC 348. Astronomers combed the cluster in search of tiny, free-floating brown dwarfs: objects too small to be stars but larger than most planets. They found three brown dwarfs that are less than eight times the mass of Jupiter. The smallest weighs just three to four times Jupiter, challenging theories for star formation.The wispy curtains filling the image are interstellar material reflecting the light from the cluster’s stars – what is known as a reflection nebula. The material also includes carbon-containing molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. The bright star closest to the center of the frame is actually a pair of type B stars in a binary system, which are the most massive stars in the cluster. Winds from these stars may help sculpt the large loop seen on the right side of the field of view. || STScI-01HFC8K9A4CX579GP4QMDX2QBY-nircam_print.jpg (1024x1372) [393.6 KB] || STScI-01HFC8K9A4CX579GP4QMDX2QBY-nircam.png (3788x5077) [24.7 MB] || STScI-01HFC8K9A4CX579GP4QMDX2QBY-nircam-hw.png (3840x2160) [4.8 MB] || STScI-01HFC8K9A4CX579GP4QMDX2QBY-nircam_searchweb.png (320x180) [111.1 KB] || STScI-01HFC8K9A4CX579GP4QMDX2QBY-nircam_thm.png (80x40) [14.4 KB] || webb-identifies-tiniest-free-floating-brown-dwarf-nircam.hwshow [364 bytes] || ",
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        {
            "id": 10662,
            "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10662/",
            "result_type": "Produced Video",
            "release_date": "2021-04-14T00:00:00-04:00",
            "title": "Webb Science Simulations: Planetary Systems and Origins of Life",
            "description": "Supercomputer simulations of planeratry evolution. Part 1: Turbulent Molecular Cloud Nebula with Protostellar ObjectsThe Advanced Visualization Laboratory (AVL) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) collaborated with NASA and Drs. Alexei Kritsuk and Michael Norman to visualize a computational data set of a turbulent molecular cloud nebula forming protostellar objects and accretion disks approximately 100 AU in diameter, on the order of the size of our solar system. AVL used its Amore software to interpolate and render the Adaptive Mesh Refinement (AMR) simulation generated from ENZO code for cosmology and astrophysics. The AMR simulation was developed by Drs. Kritsuk and Norman at the Laboratory for Computational Astrophysics. The AMR simulation generated more than 2 terabytes of data and follows star formation processes in a self-gravitating turbulent molecular cloud with a dynamic range of half-a-million in linear scale, resolving both the large-scale filamentary structure of the molecular cloud (~5 parsec) and accretion disks around emerging young protostellar objects (down to 2 AU).  Part 2: Protoplanetary Disk and Planet FormationThe Advanced Visualization Laboratory (AVL) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) collaborated with NASA and Dr. Aaron Boley to visualize the 16,000 year evolution of a young, isolated protoplanetary disk which surrounds a newly-formed protostar. The disk forms spiral arms and a dense clump as a result of gravitational collapse. Dr. Aaron Boley developed this computational model to investigate the response of young disks to mass accretion from their surrounding envelopes, including the direct formation of planets and brown dwarfs through gravitational instability.  The main formation mechanism for gas giant planets has been debated within the scientific community for over a decade. One of these theories is 'direct formation through gravitational instability.' If the self-gravity of the gas overwhelms the disk's thermal pressure and the stabilizing effect of differential rotation, the gas closest to the protostar rotates faster than gas farther away. In this scenario, regions of the gaseous disk collapse and form a planet directly. The study, presented in Boley (2009), explores whether mass accretion in the outer regions of disks can lead to such disk fragmentation. The simulations show that clumps can form in situ at large disk radii. If the clumps survive, they can become gas giants on wide orbits, e.g., Fomalhaut b, or even more massive objects called brown dwarfs. Whether a disk forms planets at large radii and, if so, the number of planets that form, depend on how much of the envelope mass is distributed at large distances from the protostar.  The results of the simulations suggest that there are two modes of gas giant planet formation. The first mode occurs early in the disk's lifetime, at large radii, and through the disk instability mechanism. After the main accretion phase is over, gas giants can form in the inner disk, over a period of a million years, through the core accretion mechanism, which researchers are addressing in other studies.Thanks to R. H. Durisen, L. Mayer, and G. Lake for comments and discussions relating to this research. This study was supported in part by the University of Zurich, Institute for Theoretical Physics, and by a Swiss Federal Grant. Resources supporting this work were provided by the NASA High-End Computing (HEC) Program through the NASA Advanced Supercomputing (NAS) Division at Ames Research Center.AVL at NCSA, University of Illinois. || ",
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        },
        {
            "id": 13419,
            "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/13419/",
            "result_type": "Animation",
            "release_date": "2019-11-07T13:00:00-05:00",
            "title": "NICER Catches Milestone X-ray Burst",
            "description": "At about 10:04 p.m. EDT on Aug. 20, NASA’s Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope on the International Space Station detected a sudden spike of X-rays caused by a massive thermonuclear flash on the surface of a pulsar, the crushed remains of a star that long ago exploded as a supernova. The X-ray burst, the brightest seen by NICER so far, came from an object named SAX J1808.4-3658, or J1808 for short. The observations reveal many phenomena that have never been seen together in a single burst. In addition, the subsiding fireball briefly brightened again for reasons astronomers cannot yet explain.  The data reveal a two-step change in brightness, which scientists think is caused by the ejection of separate layers from the pulsar surface, and other features that will help them decode the physics of these powerful events.The explosion, which astronomers classify as a Type I X-ray burst, released as much energy in 20 seconds as the Sun does in nearly 10 days.J1808 is located about 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius, spins at a dizzying 401 rotations each second, and is one member of a binary system. Its companion is a brown dwarf, an object larger than a giant planet yet too small to be a star. A steady stream of hydrogen gas flows from the companion toward the neutron star, and it accumulates in a vast storage structure called an accretion disk.Hydrogen raining onto the pulsar's surface forms a hot, ever-deepening global “sea.” At the base of this layer, temperatures and pressures increase until hydrogen nuclei fuse to form helium nuclei, which produces energy — a process at work in the core of our Sun.     The helium settles out and builds up a layer of its own. Eventually, the conditions allow helium nuclei to fuse into carbon. The helium erupts explosively and unleashes a thermonuclear fireball across the entire pulsar surface.As the burst started, NICER data show that its X-ray brightness leveled off for almost a second before increasing again at a slower pace. The researchers interpret this “stall” as the moment when the energy of the blast built up enough to blow the pulsar’s hydrogen layer into space. The fireball continued to build for another two seconds and then reached its peak, blowing off the more massive helium layer. The helium expanded faster, overtook the hydrogen layer before it could dissipate, and then slowed, stopped and settled back down onto the pulsar’s surface. Following this phase, the pulsar briefly brightened again by roughly 20 percent for reasons the team does not yet understand. || ",
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        {
            "id": 12660,
            "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12660/",
            "result_type": "Produced Video",
            "release_date": "2017-07-17T13:00:00-04:00",
            "title": "New Brown Dwarf Found by NASA-funded Citizen Science Project",
            "description": "This illustration shows the average brown dwarf is much smaller than our sun and low mass stars and only slightly larger than the planet Jupiter. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center || Dwarf_Scale_Final_1080.png (1920x1080) [11.3 MB] || Dwarf_Scale_Final_1080.jpg (1920x1080) [764.2 KB] || Dwarf_Scale_Final_1080_print.jpg (1024x576) [278.7 KB] || Dwarf_Scale_Final_5k.png (5760x3240) [92.8 MB] || Dwarf_Scale_Final_5k.jpg (5760x3240) [4.1 MB] || Dwarf_Scale_Final_4k.png (3840x2160) [43.1 MB] || Dwarf_Scale_Final_4k.jpg (3840x2160) [1.7 MB] || ",
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        {
            "id": 12498,
            "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12498/",
            "result_type": "Produced Video",
            "release_date": "2017-02-15T12:55:00-05:00",
            "title": "Join the Search for New Nearby Worlds",
            "description": "Join the search for new worlds in the outer reaches of our solar system and in nearby interstellar space at Backyard Worlds: Planet 9. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab/Krystofer D.J. KimMusic: \"Novelty Act\" from Killer TracksWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available. || Backyard_Worlds_Still_2.png (1920x1080) [2.1 MB] || Backyard_Worlds_Still_2.jpg (1920x1080) [303.6 KB] || Backyard_Worlds_Still_2_print.jpg (1024x576) [104.8 KB] || Backyard_Worlds_Still_2_searchweb.png (320x180) [49.5 KB] || Backyard_Worlds_Still_2_thm.png (80x40) [4.8 KB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_ProRes_1920x1080.mov (1920x1080) [679.1 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_youtube_hq.mov (1920x1080) [176.5 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_1080p.mov (1920x1080) [76.4 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_Compatible.m4v (960x540) [16.4 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_Good_1080.m4v (1920x1080) [51.3 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_720p.mov (1280x720) [46.9 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_FINAL_Compatible.webm (960x540) [5.5 MB] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_New_SRT_Captions.en_US.srt [531 bytes] || 12498_BackyardWorlds_New_SRT_Captions.en_US.vtt [544 bytes] || ",
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        },
        {
            "id": 10659,
            "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10659/",
            "result_type": "Produced Video",
            "release_date": "2010-10-28T00:00:00-04:00",
            "title": "JWST Feature - Planetary Evolution",
            "description": "A fully produced video about planetary evolution and how the Webb Telelscope's ability to see inside dense clouds of gas and dust will help us better understand solar system formation and evolution. || ",
            "hits": 195
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}