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    JWST tagged posts

    Were Galaxies much Different in the Early Universe?

    January 26, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The HERA radio telescope consists of 350 dishes pointed upward to detect 21-centimeter emissions from the early universe. It is located in a radio-quiet region of the arid Karoo in South Africa. (Photo credit: Dara Storer, 2022)

    Newest data from HERA improves search for cosmic dawn radiation, tests theories of galaxy formation. An array of 350 radio telescopes in the Karoo desert of South Africa is getting closer to detecting “cosmic dawn” – the era after the Big Bang when stars first ignited and galaxies began to bloom.

    In a paper accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) team reports that it has doubled the sensitivity of the array, which was already the most sensitive radio telescope in the world dedicated to exploring ...

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    James Webb Telescope reveals Milky Way-like Galaxies in Young Universe

    January 10, 2023, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Comparison of same galaxy imaged by Hubble Space Telescope and by James Webb Space Telescope
    The power of JWST to map galaxies at high resolution and at longer infrared wavelengths than Hubble allows it look through dust and unveil the underlying structure and mass of distant galaxies. This can be seen in these two images of the galaxy EGS23205, seen as it was about 11 billion years ago. In the HST image (left, taken in the near-infrared filter), the galaxy is little more than a disk-shaped smudge obscured by dust and impacted by the glare of young stars, but in the corresponding JWST mid-infrared image (taken this past summer), it’s a beautiful spiral galaxy with a clear stellar bar. Credit: NASA/CEERS/University of Texas at Austin

    New images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal for the first time galaxies with stellar bars — elongated features of stars stre...

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    An Exoplanet Atmosphere as never seen before

    November 23, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Credit: Melissa Weiss/Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

    The JWST just scored another first: a detailed molecular and chemical portrait of a distant world’s skies. New observations of WASP-39 b reveal a never-before-seen molecule in the atmosphere of a planet – sulfur dioxide – among other details.

    The telescope’s array of highly sensitive instruments was trained on the atmosphere of a “hot Saturn” – a planet about as massive as Saturn orbiting a star some 700 light-years away – known as WASP-39 b. While JWST and other space telescopes, including Hubble and Spitzer, previously have revealed isolated ingredients of this broiling planet’s atmosphere, the new readings provide a full menu of atoms, molecules, and even signs of active chemistry and clouds.

    “The clarity of...

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    Surprise finding suggests ‘Water Worlds’ are more Common than we thought

    September 10, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    view of one hemisphere of Europa, a moon made of pale rock with orange streaks across surface
    A new study suggests that many more planets in distant solar systems have large amounts of water than previously thought—as much as half water and half rock. The catch? It’s probably imbedded underground, as in Jupiter’s moon Europa, above.
    Image courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SETI Institute

    Analysis finds evidence for many exoplanets made of water and rock around small stars. A new study suggests that many more planets may have large amounts of water than previously thought–as much as half water and half rock. The catch? All that water is probably embedded in the rock, rather than flowing as oceans or rivers on the surface.

    Water is the one thing all life on Earth needs, and the cycle of rain to river to ocean to rain is an essential part of what keeps our planet’s climate stabl...

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