Space and astronomy news
The JWST is grabbing headlines and eyeballs as its mission gains momentum. The telescope recently imaged M74 (NGC 628) with its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI.) Judy Schmidt, a well-known amateur astronomy image processor, has worked on the image to bring out more detail.
Continue reading “Here’s M74 Like You’ve Never Seen it Before, Thanks to Judy Schmidt and JWST”
The world is still reeling from the release of the James Webb Space Telescope‘s (JWST) first images. These provided a comprehensive overview of the kind of science operations that Webb will conduct over its 20-year mission. They included the most sensitive and detailed look at some iconic astronomical objects, spectra from an exoplanet atmosphere, and a deep field view of some of the most distant galaxies in the Universe. Since their release, we’ve also been treated to glimpses of objects in the Solar System captured by Webb‘s infrared instruments.
Meanwhile, the JWST collaboration released a full report titled titled “Characterization of JWST science performance from commissioning,” in which they examined everything Webb has accomplished so far and what they anticipate throughout the mission. This paper recently appeared online and covers everything from the telescope’s navigation and pointing to the performance of its many instruments. An interesting tidbit, which was not previously released, is how Webb suffered a series of micrometeoroid impacts, one of which caused “uncorrectable change” in one mirror segment.
Continue reading “You can see Where JWST Took a Direct hit From a Micrometeorite on one of its Mirrors”
After the ‘big reveal’ earlier this week of the James Webb Space Telescope’s first full color images and spectra of the universe, the science team has now released data from closer to home. One stunning shot includes Jupiter and its moons, and there are also data from several asteroids. These latest data are actually just engineering images, designed to test JWST’s ability to track solar system targets, as well as test out how the team can produce images from the data. The quality and detail in these test images have excited the mission scientists.
Continue reading “JWST Also Looked Inside the Solar System, at Jupiter and its Moons”
On the morning of Tuesday, July 12th, the world was treated to the first images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope – the most detailed images of the cosmos taken by the most powerful telescope ever! These featured familiar features from our galaxy, including updated images of the Carina Nebula, a nebula surrounding a stellar remnant (the Southern Ring), a collection of merging galaxies (Stephans Quintet), an exoplanet (WASP 96b), and a deep field image showing thousands of galaxies and gravitational lenses (SMACS 0723).
In anticipation of these images being released, a helpful space exploration ambassador shared a map that shows where these objects are located within (or in relation to) the Milky Way. The map was uploaded to the Reddit group Space on July 10th (two days before image release day) and is the work of data scientist Tony Rice (user name u/rtphokie). Rice is an information security engineer for a telecommunications company and a Solar System Ambassador with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Continue reading “Here are the Locations in the sky for the First JWST Images”
This is it! Today, people worldwide were treated to the first images acquired by James Webb! After years of delays, we are finally seeing the sharpest images of the Universe taken by the most powerful telescope ever deployed. The world was given a sneak peek yesterday when President Biden, VP Kamala Harris, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, and other NASA officials released the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the Universe to date. But at 10:30 Eastern (07:30 Pacific), all the remaining first images were released!
Continue reading “They’re Here! Check out the First Images from the James Webb Space Telescope!”
For everybody waiting with bated breath for Tuesday’s release of the first James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images, NASA’s doing a bit of a tease. They’re releasing one image a day early on Monday afternoon. And, the announcer will be the President of the United States, Mr. Joseph R. Biden. Joining him will be NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, who will conduct this one-of-a-kind White House astronomy briefing. It’s all part of the buildup to the big reveals on Tuesday.
The James Webb Space Telescope will provide unprecedented views and science about our Universe, and the first full-color images and first spectra from the new telescope will be revealed on July 12. But now NASA has done something a little unprecedented, too: they’ve given all of us who are anticipating these images a list of the cosmic targets we’ll be seeing next week.
Continue reading “NASA Reveals What the First Pictures From Webb Will Be”
A ‘throwaway’ engineering image from the James Webb Space Telescope’s commissioning phase has turned out to be a stunningly deep view of the cosmos. It rivals the deepest of Hubble Deep Field images in revealing previously unseen distant galaxies.
Continue reading “A Test Image From Webb Just Happens to be the Deepest Image Ever Taken of the Universe”
The scientific and astronomical community are eagerly waiting for Tuesday, July 12th, to come around. On this day, the first images taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be released! According to a previous statement by the agency, these images will include the deepest views of the Universe ever taken and spectra obtained from an exoplanet atmosphere. In another statement issued yesterday, the images were so beautiful that they almost brought Thomas Zarbuchen – Associate Administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) – to tears!
Continue reading “Astronomer Working With Webb Said the new Images “Almost Brought him to Tears.” We’ll see Them on July 12th”