Space and astronomy news
We’re all basking in the success of the James Webb Space Telescope. It’s fulfilling its promise as our most powerful telescope, making all kinds of discoveries that we’ve been anticipating and hoping for. But the JWST’s story is one of broken budgets, repeated requests for more time and money, and near-cancellations.
Can we make space telescopes less expensive?
Continue reading “How Can We Bring Down the Costs of Large Space Telescopes?”
When you launch humanity’s most powerful telescope, you expect results. The JWST has delivered excellent results by detecting ancient galaxies, identifying chemicals in exoplanet atmospheres, and peering into star-forming regions with more detail and clarity than any other telescope.
But every time a new telescope is about to enter service, astronomers tell us they’re excited not only about the expected results but also about the surprising results. And like other telescopes, the JWST has also delivered some surprises. While going about its business, the JWST has discovered 21 brown dwarfs.
Continue reading “JWST Accidentally Found 21 Brown Dwarfs”
There’s an unusual object near the Milky Way’s heart that astronomers call “The Brick.” It’s a massive cloud of gas called an infrared dark cloud (IDC). The Brick is dense and turbulent like others of its type, but for some reason, it shows few signs of star formation.
Why?
Continue reading “JWST Gazes into the Dark Molecular Clouds at the Heart of the Milky Way”
In November of 1572, Tycho Brahe noticed a new star in the constellation Cassiopeia. It was the first supernova to be observed in detail by Western astronomers and became known as Tycho’s Supernova. Earlier supernovae had been observed by Chinese and Japanese astronomers, but Tycho’s observations demonstrated to the Catholic world that the stars were not constant and unchanging as Aristotle presumed. Just three decades later, in 1604, Johannes Kepler watched a supernova in the constellation Ophiuchus brighten and fade. There have been no observed supernovae in the Milky Way since then.
Continue reading “The Closest Supernova Seen in the Modern Era, Examined by JWST”
Yesterday I presented a rather pessimistic view about our chances of finding evidence of alien civilizations. That work focused on detecting physical structures on an alien planet, which would take an optical telescope array the size of Saturn’s orbit. Today I’ll talk about a more optimistic view, one which focuses not on physical structures, but the fingerprint of molecules in an alien atmosphere. It’s a task that is not only much easier, it’s something we could do now using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
Continue reading “If Earth Was an Exoplanet, JWST Would Know There's an Intelligent Civilization Here”
After years of build-up and anticipation, the James Webb Space Telescope finally launched into orbit on December 25th, 2021 (what a Christmas present, huh?). Since then, the stunning images and data it has returned have proven beyond a doubt that it was the best Christmas present ever! After its first year of operations, the JWST has lived up to one of its primary objectives: to observe the first stars and galaxies that populated the Universe. The next-generation observatory has accomplished that by setting new distance records and revealing galaxies that existed less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang!
These studies are essential to charting the evolution of the cosmos and resolving issues with our cosmological models, like the Hubble Tension and the mysteries of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. Well, hang onto your hats because things have reached a new level of awesome! In a recent study, an international team of scientists isolated a well-magnified star candidate in a galaxy that appears as it was almost 12.5 billion years ago. The detection of a star that existed when the Universe was only ~1.2 billion years old showcases the abilities of the JWST and offers a preview of what’s to come!
Continue reading “JWST Plucks One Single Star out of a Galaxy Seen 12.5 Billion Years Ago”
In the past two and a half years, two next-generation telescopes have been sent to space: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the ESA’s Euclid Observatory. Before the decade is over, they will be joined by NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (RST), Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer (SPHEREx), and the ESA’s PLAnetary Transits and Oscillations of stars (PLATO) and ARIEL telescopes. These observatories will rely on advanced optics and instruments to aid in the search and characterization of exoplanets with the ultimate goal of finding habitable planets.
Along with still operational missions, these observatories will gather massive volumes of high-resolution spectroscopic data. Sorting through this data will require cutting-edge machine-learning techniques to look for indications of life and biological processes (aka. biosignatures). In a recent paper, a team of scientists from the Institute for Fundamental Theory at the University of Florida (UF-IFL) recommended that future surveys use machine learning to look for anomalies in the spectra, which could reveal unusual chemical signatures and unknown biosignatures.
Continue reading “The Most Compelling Places to Search for Life Will Look Like “Anomalies””
Planetary nebulae were first discovered in the 1700s. Legend tells us that through the small telescopes of the time, they looked rather planet-like, hence the name. Real history is a bit more fuzzy, and early objects categorized as planetary nebulae included things such as galaxies. But the term stuck when applied to circular emission nebulae centered around a dying star. As new observations show, planetary nebulae have a structure that is both simple and complex.
Continue reading “When the Sun Dies, it Could Produce a Fantastic Ring in Space, Like This New Image From JWST”
You’ve just found the perfect work desk at a garage sale, and you measure it to see if it will fit in your apartment. You brought a tape measure to size it up and find it’s 180 cm. Perfect. But your friend also brought a tape measure, and they find it’s 182 cm, which would be a smidge too long. You don’t know which tape measure is right, so you have a conundrum. Astronomers also have a conundrum, and it’s known as the Hubble tension.
Continue reading “JWST is the Perfect Machine to Resolve the Hubble Tension”
A pair of studies published in JGR: Planets and Science Advances discuss new findings from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) regarding Jupiter’s first and third Galilean Moons, Io and Ganymede, and more specifically, how the massive Jupiter is influencing activity on these two small worlds. For Io, whose mass is about 21 percent larger than Earth’s Moon, the researchers made the first discovery of sulfur monoxide (SO) gas on the volcanically active moon. For Ganymede, which is the largest moon in the solar system and boasts twice the mass of the Earth’s Moon, the researchers made the first discovery of hydrogen peroxide, which exists in Ganymede’s polar regions.
Continue reading “Jupiter’s Moons Get the JWST Treatment”