World War Fee Total PC shipments in the US will increase by just 2 percent this year, thanks to Trump's tariffs and little appetite from consumers for spending on "big-ticket" items, despite the looming end of Windows 10 support.…
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All galaxies are made up of stars, gas, dust, and dark matter, which are bound together by gravity. The Bullet Cluster is made up of two very massive collections of galaxies, known as galaxy clusters, that are themselves bound by gravity. This cluster is found in the Carina constellation 3.8 billion light-years from Earth.
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope captured the central region of the Bullet Cluster with its NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). The scene contains two massive galaxy clusters that sit on either side of the large, light blue spiral galaxy at the center. Webb’s extremely precise images revealed many more distant galaxies and faint objects, allowing a research team to refine the amount of mass in the two galaxy clusters.
The team measured thousands of galaxies in Webb’s images to accurately “weigh” both the visible and invisible mass in these galaxy clusters. They also carefully mapped and measured the collective light emitted by stars that are no longer bound to individual galaxies — known as intracluster stars. The team confirmed that the intracluster light can be a reliable tracer of dark matter, even in a highly dynamic environment like the Bullet Cluster. If these stars are not bound to galaxies, but to the cluster’s dark matter, it might become easier to pin down more specifics about the invisible matter. The researchers’ new measurements significantly refine what we know about how mass is spread throughout the Bullet Cluster. The galaxy cluster on the left has an asymmetric, elongated area of mass along the left edge of the blue region, which is a clue pointing to previous mergers in that cluster.
This image spans roughly 6.3 million light-years across. It was created with Webb data captured on 20 January 2025 from proposal #4598 (PI: M. Bradac). Several filters were used to sample specific wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F090W, Cyan: F115W, Green: F150W, Yellow: F200W, Yellow: F277W, Orange: F356W, Red: F410M, Red: F444W
The results have been published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
[Image description: Webb observation of the Bullet Cluster shows many overlapping objects, including foreground stars, galaxies in galaxy clusters, and distorted background galaxies behind the galaxy clusters, set against the black background of space.]
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Jee (Yonsei University, UC Davis), S. Cha (Yonsei University), K. Finner (Caltech/IPAC); CC BY 4.0
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A powerful heatwave has been gripping large parts of southern Europe and North Africa, pushing air temperatures beyond seasonal norms and triggering widespread health and wildfire alerts. Among the hardest-hit countries are Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Algeria.
This image, a mosaic from five overlapping orbital passes in the morning of 29 June 2025, was captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-3 mission’s Sea and Land Surface Temperature Radiometer. As the instrument’s name suggests, the image reveals the temperature of the land surface, not air temperature. Unlike measurements of air temperature, this satellite instrument measures the actual thermal energy emitted from Earth’s surface, which typically registers higher than air temperatures. Click on 'download' (above) for the 'hi-res' annotated image.
It's not just the surface of the land that’s hot, so too is the sea surface of the Mediterranean Sea – as the image also shows using information from the Copernicus Marine Service.
Monitoring land-surface temperature is crucial for understanding and forecasting weather and climate patterns, tracking wildfire risks, supporting farmers with irrigation planning, and guiding urban design to better mitigate heat.
The current heatwave is being driven by a high-pressure system stalled over Western Europe, commonly referred to as a ‘heat dome’. This system acts like a lid, trapping hot, dry air and amplifying temperatures over time. As it shifts eastward, it is also drawing in additional hot air from North Africa, further exacerbating the extreme heat across the region.
Credits: contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2025), processed by ESA; CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
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Featured in this NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month is a nearby galaxy that outshines the Milky Way. This galaxy, called Messier 82 (M82) or the Cigar Galaxy, is situated just 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major.
Despite being smaller than the Milky Way, M82 is five times as luminous as our home galaxy and forms stars ten times faster. M82 is classified as a starburst galaxy because it is forming new stars at a rate much faster than expected for a galaxy of its mass, especially at its centre. In visible-light images of M82, the central hotbed of activity is obscured by a network of thick and dusty clouds. Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) has drawn back these clouds, revealing the full brilliance of the galactic centre.
What caused M82’s burst of star formation? The answer likely lies with its neighbour, the larger spiral galaxy M81. Researchers suspect that the two galaxies have interacted gravitationally, sending gas pouring into M82’s centre millions of years ago. The influx of gas provided the raw material for new stars to form — and form they did! M82 is home to more than 100 super star clusters, some of which are still in the process of forming and are blanketed with dense, dusty gas. Super star clusters are more massive and luminous than typical star clusters; these each contain hundreds of thousands of stars.
A previous Webb NIRCam image of M82 was released in 2024. The earlier image focused on the very core of the galaxy, where individual clusters of young stars stand out against the clumps and tendrils of gas. This new image takes a broader view of M82’s brilliant centre, capturing the light of billions of stars as well as the glow of organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs.
Researchers used the new Webb data to identify plumes traced by the emission from PAH molecules. Each plume is only about 160 light-years wide, and the Webb images show that these plumes are made up of multiple individual clouds that are 16–49 light-years across — an incredible level of detail enabled by Webb’s sensitive instruments. These clouds appear to have been caught up in the galaxy’s powerful outflowing winds and whisked away from the galactic disc.
Ultimately, this phenomenon points back to the galaxy’s remarkable abundance of massive star clusters: as these massive clusters form, their newborn stars sear the surrounding gas with high-energy radiation and particles, launching the outflowing wind that is traced by this NIRCam image.
[Image Description: An image of the central part of galaxy M82. The galaxy’s disc extends from the top to the bottom of the image, emitting a blue-white glow. Gas erupts from the brightly shining centre, forming an hourglass-shaped plume of red and orange dust clouds to the left and right. Ridges and cavities in the gas are visible in great detail. Many distant galaxies can be seen in the background, as well as tiny pinprick stars in M82.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Bolatto; CC BY 4.0
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Featured in this NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month is a nearby galaxy that outshines the Milky Way. This galaxy, called Messier 82 (M82) or the Cigar Galaxy, is situated just 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major.
Despite being smaller than the Milky Way, M82 is five times as luminous as our home galaxy and forms stars ten times faster. M82 is classified as a starburst galaxy because it is forming new stars at a rate much faster than expected for a galaxy of its mass, especially at its centre. In visible-light images of M82, the central hotbed of activity is obscured by a network of thick and dusty clouds, but Webb’s infrared eyes are designed to peer through this cloudy veil and reveal the activity behind them.
What caused M82’s burst of star formation? The answer likely lies with its neighbour, the larger spiral galaxy M81. Researchers suspect that the two galaxies have interacted gravitationally, sending gas pouring into M82’s centre millions of years ago. The influx of gas provided the raw material for new stars to form — and form they did! M82 is home to more than 100 super star clusters, some of which are still in the process of forming and are blanketed with dense, dusty gas. Super star clusters are more massive and luminous than typical star clusters; these each contain hundreds of thousands of stars.
A previous Webb image of M82, featuring data from its Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam), was released in 2024. The earlier image focused on the very core of the galaxy, where individual clusters of young stars stand out against the clumps and tendrils of gas. This new image from Webb’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) provides a remarkable, mostly starless view of M82. The image is instead dominated by the emission from warm dust and intricate clouds of sooty organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAHs.
The emission from the PAH molecules traces the galaxy’s broad outflows, which are launched by the intense radiation and winds from the hot young stars of the central super star clusters. Though super star clusters are the source of M82’s powerful galactic winds, the winds may spell the end for the galaxy’s starburst era: as the winds billow into intergalactic space, they likely carry with them the cool gas needed to form even more stars.
[Image Description: An image of the central part of galaxy M82. Its disc, a narrow bar from the top to the bottom of the image, can be seen by its intense blue-white glow. Thick clouds of gas cover the scene, erupting from the galaxy’s core out to the left and right. The gas is mostly pale red in colour and richly textured, with ridges and cavities visible in great detail. A few stars in M82 are visible scattered across the gas.]
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Bolatto; CC BY 4.0
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On 25 June, with just a few days to go before scheduled launch, the Meteosat Third Generation Sounder (MTG-S1) satellite, that is hosting the instrument for the Copernicus Sentinel-4 mission, was ready to be placed inside the launch rocket.
This is the last time the satellite engineers have hands-on manual control of the MTG-S1 satellite – and is the last time the team will see the satellite and instruments that have taken years of planning, design and testing. Mating and encapsulation are the final phases of activity before launch. During these activities, the satellite keeps its solar arrays in a folded position like a moth inside its cocoon.
Once the satellite is attached to its flight adaptor, it is encapsulated inside the tip of the rocket, known as the fairing, where the cone-shaped structure provides a protective case during the initial phase of the launch ascent. This encapsulated assembly, with the MTG-S1 satellite inside, is then mated with the rocket after its transportation to the hangar at the launch pad.
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Credits: SpaceX
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