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    JWST tagged posts

    Dark Galactic region nicknamed ‘The Brick’ explained with Webb Telescope findings

    December 5, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The Galactic Center is full of stars: There are over half a million in this image. Using JWST’s specialized filters and a little bit of Photoshop, the team was able to remove the stars and show only the filamentary nebula of hot gas that permeates the inner Galaxy.  The bright regions are where hydrogen is a hot plasma, glowing from the energy from the massive stars.  The Brick is the dark region where that glowing plasma is blocked out.  Along the edge of the Brick, the glow is bluer: this blue appearance is caused by the CO ice blocking out the red light, letting only the blue through. Photos courtesy of Adam Ginsburg.

    Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers spot unexpected source of carbon monoxide ice at galactic region surprisingly devoid of stars.

    In a recent study...

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    ‘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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