Astro Blog

By Dennis Overbye , The New York Times.  Excerpt: Since the James Webb Space Telescope began operating two years ago, astronomers have been using it to leapfrog one another millions of years into the past, back toward the moment they call cosmic dawn, when the first stars and galaxies were formed. Last month, an international team doing research as the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES, said it had identified the earliest, most distant galaxy yet found — [JADES-GS-z14-0] a banana-shaped blob of color measuring 1,600 light-years across. It was already shining with intense starlight when the universe was in its relative infancy, at only 290 million years old, the astronomers said. ...the wavelength of light from JADES-GS-z14-0 had been stretched more than 15-fold by the expansion of the universe (a redshift of 14 to use astronomical jargon), similar to the way a siren’s pitch becomes lower as it speeds away. That means light has been coming toward us for 13.5 billion ...

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-66974738 By Jonathan Amos , The Guardian.  Excerpt: Jupiter-sized "planets" free-floating in space, unconnected to any star, have been spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). What's intriguing about the discovery is that these objects appear to be moving in pairs. Astronomers are currently struggling to explain them. The telescope observed about 40 pairs in a fabulously detailed new survey of the famous Orion Nebula. They've been nicknamed Jupiter Mass Binary Objects, or "JuMBOs" for short. ..."Gas physics suggests you shouldn't be able to make objects with the mass of Jupiter on their own, and we know single planets can get kicked out from star systems. But how do you kick out pairs of these things together? Right now, we don't have an answer. It's one for the theoreticians," the European Space Agency's (Esa) senior science adviser told BBC News.... 

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adg4155 By SAMANTHA K. TRUMBO  AND  MICHAEL E. BROWN , Science.  Excerpt: [Editor's summary:] Europa, an icy moon of Jupiter, has a subsurface ocean beneath a crust of water ice. Solid carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) has previously been observed on its surface, but the source was unknown. Two teams analyzed infrared spectroscopy of Europa from the James Webb Space Telescope to investigate the CO 2  source. Trumbo and Brown found that the CO 2  is concentrated in a region with geology that indicates transport of material to the surface from within the moon, and they discuss the implications for the composition of Europa’s internal ocean. Villanueva  et al . also identified an internal origin of the CO 2  and measured its  12 C/ 13 C isotope ratio. They searched for plumes of volatile material breaching the surface but found a lower activity than earlier observations. Together, these studies demonstrate t...

https://www.fraknoi.com/astronomy/pahs-found-in-distant-galaxy/ By Andrew Fraknoi.  Excerpt: Astronomers working with the Webb Space Telescope have found a fortunate alignment in the sky that has enabled them to detect the faint signal of a complex building block of life just 1.5 billion years after the origin of the universe. The discovery of PAH’s (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) so soon after the Big Bang is another powerful demonstration that assembling the ingredients for the chemistry of life is a process that began in the vast clouds of raw material between the stars. And, it seems, it began quite quickly after the first generations of stars produced the required elements.... 

https://www.science.org/content/article/giant-plume-spotted-erupting-moon-saturn-might-contain-ingredients-life By Ron Cowen, Science.  Excerpt: NASA’s JWST space telescope has observed a 10,000-kilometer-long plume of water vapor jetting into space from Saturn’s moon Enceladus—the largest spray ever detected from the icy world, which is just one-seventh the diameter of Earth’s Moon. ...Planetary scientists view Enceladus as a prime target in the search for extraterrestrial life because beneath its icy crust the moon houses a salty ocean—a good medium for the ingredients of life to mix. ...Researchers describe the results  today in a NASA press release  and in a  paper  accepted at Nature Astronomy. ...NASA’s Cassini mission, which in 2005 discovered the plumes on Enceladus  ... flew through them  seven times during its 13-year mission, discovering organic molecules such as methane and formaldehyde, and hydrogen, a potential energy source for micr...

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/webb-looks-for-fomalhaut-s-asteroid-belt-and-finds-much-more By NASA.  Excerpt: Astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to image the warm dust around a nearby young star, Fomalhaut, in order to study the first asteroid belt ever seen outside of our solar system in infrared light. But to their surprise, the dusty structures are much more complex than the asteroid and Kuiper dust belts of our solar system. Overall, there are three nested belts extending out to 14 billion miles (23 billion kilometers) from the star; that’s 150 times the distance of Earth from the Sun. The scale of the outermost belt is roughly twice the scale of our solar system’s Kuiper Belt of small bodies and cold dust beyond Neptune. The inner belts – which had never been seen before – were revealed by Webb for the first time. ...The team’s results are being published in the journal  Nature Astronomy . See also  New York Times article .... 

2 https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/webb-telescope-confirms-earth-size-exoplanet-tries-to-sniff-air By Monica Young, Sky & Telescope.  Excerpt: The James Webb Space Telescope has confirmed its first exoplanet, a rocky Earth-size planet, and attempted to take the measure of its atmosphere. ...Although roughly Earth-like in size, this world is nevertheless completely uninhabitable, roasting in its four-day orbit around its middle-aged red dwarf star. ...while they can match the data with an atmosphere dominated by carbon dioxide, those data are also consistent with a completely airless world. Zero atmosphere for a planet several hundred degrees warmer than Earth wouldn’t be a great surprise, especially around the type of star known for its atmosphere-stripping flares.... 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/27/science/astronomy-webb-telescope.html By  Dennis Overbye , The New York Times.  Excerpt: So far it’s been eye candy from heaven: The black vastness of space teeming with enigmatic, unfathomably distant blobs of light. Ghostly portraits of Neptune, Jupiter and other neighbors we thought we knew already. Nebulas and galaxies made visible by the penetrating infrared eyes of the James Webb Space Telescope. ...For three days in December, some 200 astronomers filled an auditorium at the institute to hear and discuss the first results from the telescope. ...Galaxies that, even in their relative youth, had already spawned supermassive black holes. Atmospheric studies of some of the seven rocky exoplanets orbiting Trappist 1, a red dwarf star that might harbor habitable planets. (Data suggest that at least two of the exoplanets lack the bulky primordial hydrogen atmospheres that would choke off life as we know it, but they may have skimpy atmosph...

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-best-of-jwsts-cosmic-portraits/ By Clara Moskowitz , Scientific American.  Excerpt: [Images Jupiter, Neptune and their rings as well as the phantom galaxy, M74.]

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/052/01GF423GBQSK6ANC89NTFJW8VM By Webb Space Telescope.  Excerpt: The Pillars of Creation ... is a region where young stars are forming – or have barely burst from their dusty cocoons as they continue to form. Newly formed stars are the scene-stealers in this  Near-Infrared Camera  (NIRCam) image. These are the bright red orbs that sometimes appear with eight diffraction spikes. When knots with sufficient mass form within the pillars, they begin to collapse under their own gravity, slowly heat up, and eventually begin shining brightly. Along the edges of the pillars are wavy lines that look like lava. These are ejections from stars that are still forming. Young stars periodically shoot out supersonic jets that can interact within clouds of material, like these thick pillars of gas and dust. This sometimes also results in bow shocks, which can form wavy patterns like a boat does as it moves through water. These young sta...

https://www.science.org/content/article/webb-telescope-takes-its-first-direct-image-exoplanet By Daniel Clery, Science Magazine.  Excerpt: A research team analyzing early data from the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed the instrument’s initial images of a planet beyond our Solar System, a success that closely follows last week’s unveiling of Webb’s first  measurements from the atmosphere of a different exoplanet . The newly imaged young gas giant, seven times the mass of Jupiter, is captured still glowing hot after its formation. The planet’s infrared emissions traveled 350 light-years before the photons were gathered by Webb’s gold-plated mirrors. In a paper  posted today on the arXiv preprint server , the Webb astronomers exhibit several images of the planet, called HIP 65426 b, at a range of wavelengths (shown in insets, above) that have heretofore been invisible to Earthbound telescopes because of our planet’s infrared-blocking atmosphere. ...the high quality of...

https://www.science.org/content/article/carbon-dioxide-detected-around-alien-world-first-time By Daniel Clery, Science Magazine.  Excerpt: Astronomers have found carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in the atmosphere of a Saturn-size planet 700 light-years away—the first unambiguous detection of the gas in a planet beyond the Solar System. The discovery, made by the  James Webb Space Telescope , provides clues to how the planet formed. The result also shows just how quickly Webb may identify a spate of other gases, such as methane and ammonia, which could hint at a planet’s potential habitability for life. ...The Webb telescope is sensitive to infrared wavelengths of light that are mostly blocked by Earth’s atmosphere. ...the infrared sensitivity is also critical for researchers.... When an exoplanet’s orbit takes it in front of its star, some of the starlight passes through the planet’s atmosphere and carries fingerprints of its composition. The atmospheric gases absorb specific wavelength...

https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/08/22/webbs-jupiter-images-showcase-auroras-hazes/ By Alise Fisher , NASA Webb Space Telescope.  Excerpt: ...NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured new images of [Jupiter].  ...“We hadn’t really expected it to be this good, to be honest,” said planetary astronomer Imke de Pater, professor emerita of the University of California, Berkeley. ...“It’s really remarkable that we can see details on Jupiter together with its rings, tiny satellites, and even galaxies in one image,” she said. The two images come from the observatory’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), which has three specialized infrared filters that showcase details of the planet. Since infrared light is invisible to the human eye, the light has been mapped onto the visible spectrum. Generally, the longest wavelengths appear redder and the shortest wavelengths are shown as more blue. Scientists collaborated with citizen scientist Judy Schmidt to translate ...

https://www.science.org/content/article/webb-telescope-reveals-unpredicted-bounty-bright-galaxies-early-universe By Daniel Clery, Science Magazine.  Excerpt: Star formation after the big bang appears much faster than models had forecast. The James Webb Space Telescope has only been watching the sky for a few weeks, and it has already delivered a startling finding: tens, hundreds, maybe even 1000 times more bright galaxies in the early universe than astronomers anticipated. “No one was expecting anything like this,” says Michael Boylan-Kolchin of the University of Texas, Austin. “Galaxies are exploding out of the woodwork,” says Rachel Somerville of the Flatiron Institute. Galaxy formation models may now need a revision, as current ones hold that gas clouds should be far slower to coalesce into stars and galaxies than is suggested by Webb’s galaxy-rich images of the early universe, less than 500 million years after the big bang. “This is way outside the box of what models were predi...

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/webb-captures-stellar-gymnastics-in-the-cartwheel-galaxy By  NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI .  Excerpt: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has peered into the chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy, revealing new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole. Webb’s powerful infrared gaze produced this detailed image of the Cartwheel and two smaller companion galaxies against a backdrop of many other galaxies. ...The Cartwheel Galaxy, located about 500 million light-years away in the Sculptor constellation, is a rare sight. Its appearance, much like that of the wheel of a wagon, is the result of an intense event – a high-speed collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy not visible in this image. ...The collision most notably affected the galaxy’s shape and structure. The Cartwheel Galaxy sports two rings — a bright inner ring and a surrounding, colorful ring. These two rings expand outwards from the center of the coll...

https://webbtelescope.org/news/news-releases By NASA, ESA, Canadian Space Agency.  Excerpt: The first images and spectroscopic data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have revealed unprecedented and detailed views of the universe. Webb’s first images and spectra, including downloadable files, can be found at  https://webbtelescope.org/news/first-images .… See zoomable image of Webb's First Deep Field (very early galaxies); Deepest Image of Universe ; Spectrum of an exoplanet ; Southern Ring Nebula (dying star); Stephan’s Quintet (merging galaxies); star-forming region NGC 3324  in the Carina Nebula; and Science Magazine article  Webb telescope wows with first images .

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/02/science/webb-telescope-exoplanets-atmosphere.html Source:     Carl Zimmer , The New York Times Excerpt:  The first question astronomers want to answer about exoplanets: Do they have atmospheres friendly to life? ... Identifying an atmosphere in another solar system would be remarkable enough. But there is even a chance — albeit tiny — that one of these atmospheres will offer what is known as a biosignature: a signal of life itself. ... Scientists are still debating what a reliable biosignature would be. Earth’s atmosphere is unique in our solar system in that it contains a lot of oxygen, largely the product of plants and algae. But oxygen can also be produced without life’s help, when water molecules in the air are split. Methane, likewise, can be released by living microbes but also by volcanoes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/07/science/space/marcia-rieke-james-webb-telescope.html By Mark A. Stein , The New York Times interview.  Excerpt: When the James Webb Space Telescope sent its first images to Earth, no one was more excited than Marcia J. Rieke, who oversaw the design and construction of its camera. ...We’ve gotten the first images and we’re super happy. The entire Webb team is ecstatic at how well the first steps of taking images and aligning the telescope are proceeding. ... When did the astronomy bug bite you? As a kid, I read astronomy and science fiction books from the public library and became enchanted with the idea of visiting other planets. When I was in junior high, I worked as a babysitter and saved money to buy myself a telescope. ... This was in the late 1960s. How was it to be a woman in your field back then? My entering class was one of the first ones where M.I.T. made a big push to get more women accepted. In my class, there were something like 73 w...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2022/01/25/berkeley-astronomers-to-put-new-space-telescope-through-its-paces/ By  Robert Sanders , UC Berkeley News.  Excerpt: ...Following the six-month-long commissioning phase, 13 teams chosen by NASA will take the new [James Webb Space] telescope [JWST] for a spin, putting its instruments through their paces by targeting astronomical objects that will be the major focus of scientists during the telescope’s planned 10 years of operation, and probably much longer. “To have two of the 13 led by people at Berkeley was pretty exceptional,” said [Imke] de Pater, a Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School and Distinguished Professor Emerita of astronomy and earth and planetary science who wrote her proposal in 2017 before her retirement from teaching last year. Given the JWST’s primary mission to study dim, distant galaxies and faint exoplanets, the observations planned by de Pater and her team of about 50 astronomers may seem out of character...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2022/01/24/webb-space-telescope-final-destination/ By  Joel Achenbach , The Washington Post.  Excerpt: NASA’s long-delayed, $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble, has been cruising for a month, deploying a vast sun shield and 18 gold-plated mirrors while overcoming a long list of potential snags. It will study the evolution of galaxies and provide new looks at worlds in our own solar system. ...The final course correction, the third engine burn since launch, placed the Webb in a  gravitationally stable position known as L2 , where it will always be roughly 1 million miles from Earth on the opposite side of our planet from the sun. ...the launch itself and two subsequent engine burns were so efficient that the Webb did not expend very much fuel to get where it is going. The extra fuel will prolong the lifetime of the telescope by years, well beyond its official 10-year target. “We doubled the mission life...