NASA's SPHEREx mission has mapped interstellar ice at an unprecedented scale, covering regions in the Milky Way galaxy more than 600 light-years across. The interstellar ice was found inside giant molecular clouds, which are vast regions of gas and dust where dense clumps of matter collapse under gravity, giving birth to stars. Researchers believe these ice reservoirs, attached to the surfaces of tiny dust grains, are where most of the universe's water is formed and stored. The water in Earth's oceans and the ices in comets and on other planets and moons in our galaxy originates from these regions.
One of SPHEREx's main goals is to map the chemical signatures of various types of interstellar ice, including molecules like water, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide. Thanks to its spectral capabilities, SPHEREx can measure the amounts of various ices and molecules, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, in and around molecular clouds. The SPHEREx observatory is the first infrared mission specifically designed to find such molecules over the entire sky via the mission's large-scale spectral survey.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope have teamed up to capture new views of Saturn, revealing the planet in strikingly different ways. Observing in complementary wavelengths of light, the two space observatories provide scientists with a richer, more layered understanding of the gas giant's atmosphere. In the Webb image, a long-lived jet stream known as the 'ribbon wave' meanders across the northern mid-latitudes, influenced by otherwise undetectable atmospheric waves. Just below that, a small spot represents a lingering remnant from the 'Great Springtime Storm' of 2010 to 2012.
Several of the pointed edges of Saturn's iconic hexagon-shaped jet stream at its north pole, discovered by NASA's Voyager spacecraft in 1981, are faintly visible in both images. These are likely the last high-resolution looks we'll see of the famous hexagon until the 2040's, as the northern pole enters winter and will shift into darkness for 15 years. In Webb's infrared observations, Saturn's poles appear distinctly grey-green, indicating light emitting at wavelengths around 4.3 microns.