{ "count": 6, "next": null, "previous": null, "results": [ { "id": 20388, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/20388/", "result_type": "Animation", "release_date": "2023-12-05T14:00:00-05:00", "title": "PUNCH Spacecraft Beauty Passes", "description": "NASA’s Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission is a constellation of four small satellites in Sun-synchronous, low Earth orbit that will make global, 3D observations of the young solar wind, from the outermost solar atmosphere to the inner heliopshere. Images of unprecedented quality will help to close a 60-year gap in measurements of understanding of what occurs in this region of space. PUNCH will share a ride to space with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Re-ionization, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx) mission. The missions launched on March 11, 2025, on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Space Launch Complex 4 East at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.Get the latest updates on NASA's PUNCH blog. || ", "hits": 66 }, { "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. || ", "hits": 218 }, { "id": 40110, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/astro-galaxy/", "result_type": "Gallery", "release_date": "2015-09-18T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Astrophysics Galaxy Listing", "description": "No description available.", "hits": 132 }, { "id": 40111, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/astro-star/", "result_type": "Gallery", "release_date": "2015-09-18T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Astrophysics Star Listing", "description": "No description available.", "hits": 177 }, { "id": 10663, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10663/", "result_type": "Produced Video", "release_date": "2010-11-01T00:00:00-04:00", "title": "Webb Science Simulations: Re-Ionization Era", "description": "The visualization shows galaxies, composed of gas, stars and dark matter, colliding and forming filaments in the large-scale universe providing a view of the Cosmic Web. The Advanced Visualization Laboratory (AVL) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) collaborated with NASA and Drs. Renyue Cen and Jeremiah Ostriker to visualize a simulation of the nonlinear cosmological evolution of the universe. Drs. Cen and Ostriker developed one of the largest cosmological hydrodynamic simulations and computed over 749 gigabytes of raw data at the NCSA in 2005. AVL used Amore software (http://avl.ncsa.illinois.edu/what-we-do/software) to interpolate and render approximately 322 gigabytes of a subset of the computed data. The simulation begins about 20 million years after the Big Bang - about 13.7 billion years ago - and extends until the present day.AVL(http://avl.ncsa.illinois.edu/) at NCSA (http://ncsa.illinois.edu/), University of Illinois (www.illinois.edu) || ", "hits": 262 }, { "id": 40116, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/jwst/", "result_type": "Gallery", "release_date": "2000-01-01T00:00:00-05:00", "title": "James Webb Space Telescope", "description": "The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called JWST) is a large, infrared-optimized space telescope. The observatory launched into space on an Ariane 5 rocket from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana on December 25, 2021. After launch, the observatory was successfully unfolded and is being readied for science. \n\nWebb will find the first galaxies that formed in the early Universe, connecting the Big Bang to our own Milky Way Galaxy. Webb will peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems, connecting the Milky Way to our own Solar System. Webb's instruments are designed to work primarily in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum, with some capability in the visible range.\n\nWebb has a large primary mirror, 6.5 meters (21.3 feet) in diameter and a sunshield the size of a tennis court. Both the mirror and sunshade are too large to fit onto the Ariane 5 rocket fully open, so both were folded which meant they needed to be unfolded in space. \n\nWebb is currently in its operational orbit about 1.5 million km (1 million miles) from the Earth at a location known as Lagrange Point 2 (L2).\n\nThe James Webb Space Telescope was named after the NASA Administrator who crafted the Apollo program, and who was a staunch supporter of space science.", "hits": 921 } ] }