james webb space telescope - BLOGS - Blacksciencefictionsociety2024-03-29T00:26:16Zhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/james+webb+space+telescopeDistant Cousins...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/distant-cousins-12023-06-12T10:00:00.000Z2023-06-12T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}11746179299,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11746179299,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="11746179299?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p style="text-align:center;">The galaxy observed by Webb shows an Einstein ring caused by a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. Credit: S. Doyle / J. Spilker</p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Topics: Astrobiology, Biology, James Webb Space Telescope, Space Exploration</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Researchers have detected complex organic molecules in a galaxy more than <a href="https://physicsandnano.com/2023/06/12/distant-cousins/" target="_blank">12 billion light-years</a> away from Earth—the most distant galaxy in which these molecules are now known to exist. Thanks to the capabilities of the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope and careful analyses from the research team, a new study lends critical insight into the complex chemical interactions that occurred in the first galaxies in the early universe.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign astronomy and physics professor Joaquin Vieira and graduate student Kedar Phadke collaborated with researchers at Texas A&M University and an international team of scientists to differentiate between infrared signals generated by some of the more massive and larger dust grains in the galaxy and those of the newly observed hydrocarbon molecules.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The study findings are published in the journal <strong>Nature</strong>.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>"This project started when I was in graduate school studying hard-to-detect, very distant galaxies obscured by dust," Vieira said. "Dust grains absorb and re-emit about half of the stellar radiation produced in the universe, making <a href="https://phys.org/tags/infrared+light/">infrared light</a> from distant objects extremely faint or undetectable through ground-based telescopes."</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>In the new study, the JWST received a boost from what the researchers call "nature's magnifying glass"—a phenomenon called <a href="https://phys.org/tags/gravitational+lensing/">gravitational lensing</a>. "This magnification happens when two galaxies are almost perfectly aligned from the Earth's point of view, and light from the background galaxy is warped and magnified by the foreground galaxy into a ring-like shape, known as an Einstein ring," Vieira said.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="https://phys-org.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/phys.org/news/2023-06-webb-space-telescope-universe-distant.amp" target="_blank">Webb Space Telescope detects the universe's most distant complex organic molecules</a>, Lois Yoksoulian, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em></em></span></span></p></div>WASP-39b and CO2...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/wasp-39b-and-co22022-09-01T10:00:00.000Z2022-09-01T10:00:00.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10800517078,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10800517078,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10800517078?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></p><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:8pt;">Researchers detected carbon dioxide in WASP-39b’s atmosphere when the exoplanet crossed in front of its star. The data plot shows a telltale blip where infrared wavelengths from the star’s light were absorbed by carbon dioxide on the exoplanet. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Leah Hustak (STScI), Joseph Olmsted (STScI)</span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Topics: Astrophysics, Chemistry, ESA, Exoplanets, James Webb Space Telescope, NASA</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The James Webb Space Telescope — already famous for its <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01906-6">mesmerizing images of the cosmos</a> — has done it again. The telescope has captured the first unambiguous evidence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside the Solar System.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The finding not only provides tantalizing hints about how the exoplanet formed but is also a harbinger for <a href="https://physicsandnano.com/2022/09/01/wasp-39b-and-co2/" target="_blank">what’s to come</a> as Webb studies more and more alien worlds. It was reported in a manuscript posted on the preprint server arXiv<sup><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02350-2?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=1c9921bf2e-briefing-dy-20220830&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-1c9921bf2e-43256685#ref-CR1">1</a></sup>, ahead of peer review, and is expected to be published in Nature in the coming days. (Nature’s news team is independent of its journals team.)</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The discovery is presented in a data plot with none of the luster of Webb’s previous images — which showed <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01931-5">galaxies locked in a cosmic dance and radiant clouds in a stellar nursery</a>. But Jessie Christiansen, an astronomer at the NASA Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, describes the data as “gorgeous”.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The plot, or spectrum, reveals detailed information about the atmosphere of the exoplanet WASP-39b, called a hot Jupiter by scientists because it has a diameter similar to Jupiter’s but orbits its star much more closely than Mercury orbits the Sun, making it incredibly hot. The planet, which is more than 200 parsecs from Earth, was initially discovered during ground-based observations<sup><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02350-2?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=1c9921bf2e-briefing-dy-20220830&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-1c9921bf2e-43256685#ref-CR2">2</a></sup> and later detected by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, which operated between 2003 and 2020. Data from the latter suggested<sup><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02350-2?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=1c9921bf2e-briefing-dy-20220830&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-1c9921bf2e-43256685#ref-CR3">3</a></sup> that WASP-39b’s atmosphere might contain carbon dioxide, but they were inconclusive.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-02350-2?utm_source=Nature+Briefing&utm_campaign=1c9921bf2e-briefing-dy-20220830&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c9dfd39373-1c9921bf2e-43256685" target="_blank">Webb telescope spots CO2 on exoplanet for first time: what it means for finding alien life</a>, Sharron Hall, Nature</span></span></p></div>From Redshift to Enlightenment...https://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/profiles/blogs/from-redshift-to-enlightenment2021-12-28T20:23:44.000Z2021-12-28T20:23:44.000ZReginald L. Goodwinhttps://blacksciencefictionsociety.com/members/ReginaldLGoodwin<div><center><iframe title="YouTube video player" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/69uT90tEJdE" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></center><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">Topics: Astrobiology, Astronomy, Astrophysics, Carl Sagan, James Webb Space Telescope, SETI</span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The relief was as deep as the stakes were high. At 7:20 A.M. (ET), the rocket carrying the largest, most ambitious space telescope in history cleared the launchpad in French Guiana, and the members of mission control at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore roared their elation.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The suspense was not quite over. Half an hour postlaunch, the telescope still needed to decouple from its host rocket, after which it had to deploy solar panels to partly power its journey. Only after that first deployment proved successful, said a NASA spokesperson in a statement to Scientific American, would “<a href="https://physicsandnano.com/2021/12/28/from-redshift-to-enlightenment/" target="_blank">we know we have a mission</a>.”</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>Astronomers have more riding on the rocket than the <a href="https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/">James Webb Space Telescope</a> (JWST). Also at risk is the viability of NASA’s vast space-science portfolio, if not <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/this-report-could-make-or-break-the-next-30-years-of-u-s-astronomy/">the future of astronomy</a> itself. As the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), JWST is one of those <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/at-long-last-the-james-webb-space-telescope-is-ready-for-launch/">once-in-a-generation</a> scientific projects that can strain the patience of government benefactors, as well as the responsible agency’s credibility, but also define a field for decades to come—and possibly redefine it forever.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><em>The telescope that would become JWST was already under discussion even before HST launched in April 1990. By orbiting Earth, HST would have a line of sight free of the optical distortions endemic to our planet’s atmosphere. It would therefore be able to see farther across the universe (and, given that the speed of light is finite, <u>farther back in time) than any terrestrial telescope</u>.</em></span></span></p><p><span class="font-size-3"><span style="font-family:georgia, palatino;"><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-james-webb-space-telescope-has-launched-now-comes-the-hard-part1/" target="_blank">The James Webb Space Telescope Has Launched: Now Comes the Hard Part</a>, Richard Panek, Scientific American</span></span></p></div>