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    JWST tagged posts

    ‘Teenage Galaxies’ are Unusually Hot, Glowing with Unexpected Elements

    November 22, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A Webb telescope image of a galaxy cluster known as “El Gordo,” which is an example of a “cosmic teenager.” Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA

    Similar to human teenagers, teenage galaxies are awkward, experience growth spurts and enjoy heavy metal — nickel, that is.

    A Northwestern University-led team of astrophysicists has just analyzed the first results from the CECILIA (Chemical Evolution Constrained using Ionized Lines in Interstellar Aurorae) Survey, a program that uses NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to study the chemistry of distant galaxies.

    According to the early results, so-called “teenage galaxies” — which formed two-to-three billion years after the Big Bang — are unusually hot and contain unexpected elements, like nickel, which are notoriously difficult to observe.

    The...

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    James Webb Space Telescope detects Water Vapor, Sulfur Dioxide and Sand Clouds in the Atmosphere of a nearby Exoplanet

    November 17, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    A transmission spectrum of the warm Neptune exoplanet WASP-107b, captured by the Low Resolution Spectrometer (LRS) of the Mid InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) on board JWST, reveals evidence for water vapour, sulfur dioxide, and silicate (sand) clouds in the planet’s atmosphere.

    European astronomers, co-led by researchers from the Institute of Astronomy, KU Leuven, used recent observations made with the James Webb Space Telescope to study the atmosphere of the nearby exoplanet WASP-107b. Peering deep into the fluffy atmosphere of WASP-107b they discovered not only water vapour and sulfur dioxide, but even silicate sand clouds. These particles reside within a dynamic atmosphere that exhibits vigorous transport of material.

    Astronomers worldwide are harnessing the advanced capabilities of...

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    Second-most Distant Galaxy discovered using James Webb Space Telescope

    November 14, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    composite image of pandora's cluster, with two close-up inset images
    The second- and fourth-most distant galaxies ever seen (UNCOVER z-13 and UNCOVER z-12) have been confirmed using the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). The galaxies are located in Pandora’s Cluster (Abell 2744), shown here as near-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated to visible-light colors. The scale of the main cluster image is labelled in arcseconds, which is a measure of angular distance in the sky. The circles on the black-and-white images, showing the galaxies in the NIRCam-F277W filter band onboard JWST, indicate an aperture size of 0.32 arcsec. Credit: Cluster image: NASA, UNCOVER (Bezanson et al., DIO: 10.48550/arXiv.2212.04026). Insets: Nasa, UNCOVER (Wang et al., 2023). Composition: Dani Zemba/Penn State. All Rights Reserved.
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    A New Trail to Exoplanets: Team successfully detects Ammonia Isotopologues in Atmosphere of Cold Brown Dwarf

    November 9, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space, Chemistry/Nanotechnology

    An ammonia trail to exoplanets

    They reveal the origin of wine, the age of bones and fossils, and they serve as diagnostic tools in medicine. Isotopes and isotopologues—molecules that differ only in the composition of their isotopes—also play an increasingly important role in astronomy. For example, the ratio of carbon-12 (12C) to carbon-13 (13C) isotopes in the atmosphere of an exoplanet allows scientists to infer the distance at which the exoplanet orbits its central star.

    Until now, 12C and 13C bound in carbon monoxide were the only isotopologues that could be measured in the atmosphere of an exoplanet. Now a team of researchers has succeeded in detecting ammonia isotopologues in the atmosphere of a cold brown dwarf.

    As the team has just reported in the journal Nature, ammonia could be measured in the f...

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