NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has released new three-dimensional (3D) models of celestial objects, allowing people to view and print representations of stars in various life stages. These models are based on advanced theoretical frameworks and data from space telescopes like Chandra, offering clear insights into cosmic evolution. The four new 3D-printable models include Cassiopeia A, Cygnus Loop, and the star BP Tau. These tangible models enable individuals to examine replicas of these stars from all angles. For example, Cassiopeia A combines X-ray data from Chandra and infrared data from the James Webb Space Telescope to reveal details about the "Green Monster" structure, enhancing understanding of the supernova explosion that created it 340 years ago. The Cygnus Loop represents...

This text shows the distribution of material from a slice taken from one of the turbulence simulations. The colors represent density, with dark blue indicating the least dense regions and red representing the thickest areas. The black dots mark the positions of the tracer particles, which move along with the material and record the conditions they encounter. This process creates a history of how pockets of density change over time. Courtesy of NASA/E. Scannapieco et al. (2024), ASU.

Credits: Bruno Régaldo-Saint Blancard, SimBIG collaboration

Last year, CSHL NeuroAI Scholar Kyle Daruwalla spoke to a standing-room-only crowd about AI’s energy efficiency problem.

This new, immersive visualization produced on a NASA supercomputer represents a scenario where a camera — a stand-in for a daring astronaut — just misses the event horizon and slingshots back out. This version is a 360-degree video that lets viewers look all around during the trip. Goddard scientists created the visualizations on the Discover supercomputer at the NASA Center for Climate Simulation. The destination is a supermassive black hole with 4.3 million times the mass of our Sun, equivalent to the monster located at the center of our Milky Way galaxy. To simplify the complex calculations, the black hole is not rotating. A flat, swirling cloud of hot, glowing gas called an accretion disk surrounds the black hole and serves as a visual reference during the fall. So do glowing...

This is a temperature map of the exoplanet WASP-43 b, made using MIRI on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The planet is too close to its star to be seen individually, but its brightness was calculated by measuring the brightness of the star-planet system as a whole. WASP-43 b is tidally locked and has an average temperature of 2,280°F (1,250°C) on the dayside and 1,115°F (600°C) on the nightside. The temperature map shows that the nightside is covered in thick, high clouds, which make it appear cooler than it would if there were no clouds.

NASA/Kasey Dillahay

The Sun is near the maximum phase of the solar cycle, so the solar magnetic field is evolving rapidly. This predictive model is updated in near real-time with the latest measurements of the surface magnetic field. This animation shows how the Sun and the prediction are evolving with time. Credits: Predictive Science Inc.