Deep Space Objects
This nearest major spiral galaxy is about 2.5 million light-years away and will eventually merge with the Milky Way.
What is Andromeda (M31)?
Webb launched in this month and year.
What is December 2021?
This type of galaxy has arms that wind out from a central bulge.
What is a spiral galaxy?
This NASA flagship telescope launched in August 2026 and is named after the “Mother of Hubble.”
What is the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope?
This 2017 event was the first time we detected both gravitational waves and light from a neutron-star merger.
What is GW170817?
This edge-on spiral is famous for its bright central bulge and dark dust lane that looks like a Mexican hat.
What is the Sombrero Galaxy?
Webb’s primary mirror is this many meters across and is coated in gold.
What is 6.5 meters?
Galaxies that are football-shaped or spherical with mostly older stars are called this.
What are elliptical galaxies?
Roman will sit at the same special point in space as Webb.
What is L2?
Neutron-star mergers produce these heavy elements through the r-process.
What are gold / platinum / heavy metals?
These two colliding galaxies are nicknamed for the long tidal tails they formed.
What are the Antennae Galaxies?
Webb orbits this special point in space about 1.5 million km from Earth.
What is Sun-Earth L2?
When two galaxies pass close to each other, they can form these long streams of stars and gas.
What are tidal tails?
One of Roman’s main science goals is to study this mysterious force accelerating the expansion of the universe.
What is dark energy?
These pulsing variable stars are used as “standard candles” because their period is related to their true brightness.
What are Cepheid variables?
This starburst galaxy is also called the Cigar Galaxy and hosts ultra-luminous X-ray sources and SN 2014J.
What is M82?
Webb primarily observes in this part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
What is infrared?
A galaxy currently forming stars at a very high rate is called this.
What is a starburst galaxy?
This future NASA concept (target ~2040s) is designed to directly image Earth-like planets and search for biosignatures.
What is the Habitable Worlds Observatory?
Type Ia supernovae are useful as distance indicators because they all have roughly the same of this.
What is peak luminosity?
This ring-shaped galaxy was created by a head-on collision that sent a wave of star formation outward.
What is the Cartwheel Galaxy?
One of Webb’s four main science goals is to study this era when the first stars and galaxies formed.
What is Cosmic Dawn?
This diagram plots stars by temperature (or color) versus luminosity and is key to understanding stellar evolution.
What is the Hertzsprung-Russell (H-R) diagram?
This European space mission (planned ~2035) will detect low-frequency gravitational waves from supermassive black-hole mergers.
What is LISA?
This method of measuring cosmic distances starts with parallax and works outward to Hubble’s Law.
What is the cosmic distance ladder?