MIRI tagged posts

Webb reveals oxygen-rich dust and water surviving near Milky Way’s central black hole

IRS 3 Field (NIRCam and MIRI image)

Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers has discovered that dust and water can form and survive surprisingly close to the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy. The observations reveal that the evolved star IRS3 continues to enrich its surroundings with newly formed material despite the intense radiation environment around SagittariusA*.

IRS 3 has reached a stage near the end of its life called the asymptotic giant branch phase. Stars in this phase of life are huge, cool and luminous, and they shed gas into space with their powerful stellar winds...

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The monster hiding in plain sight: JWST reveals cosmic shapeshifter in the early universe

The monster hiding in plain sight: JWST reveals cosmic shapeshifter in the early universe
Covering a tiny patch of sky spanning less than a tenth of the full moon, the famous “Hubble eXtreme Deep Field” image revealed thousands of galaxies, including objects from the universe infancy. The James Webb Space Telescope observed the same region over three years. U of A researchers zoomed in on the galaxy reported in this study (inset), captured when the universe was only 800 million years old. The team found that even at its young age, it already harbored a supermassive black hole, shrouded in dust. Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Östlin, P. G. Perez-Gonzalez, J. Melinder, the JADES Collaboration, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)

In a glimpse of the early universe, astronomers have observed a galaxy as it appeared just 800 million years after the Big Bang—a cosmic Jekyll and Hyde that loo...

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First-ever Detection of a Mid-Infrared Flare in SagittariusA*, the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole

Using the MIRI instrument onboard the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of scientists made the first-ever detection of a mid-IR flare from Sagittarius A*, the supermassive blackhole at the heart of the Milky Way. In simultaneous radio observations, the team found a radio counterpart of the flare lagging behind in time. The paper is published on the arXiv preprint server.

Scientists have been actively observing Sagittarius A* (Sgr A)—a supermassive black hole roughly 4 million times the mass of the sun— since the early 1990s. Sgr A regularly exhibits flares that can be observed in multiple wavelengths, allowing scientists to see different views of the same flare and better understand how it emits light and how the emission is generated...

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Investigating the Origins of the Crab Nebula

This image by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows different structural details of the Crab Nebula. The supernova remnant is comprised of several different components, including doubly ionized sulfur (represented in green), warm dust (magenta), and synchrotron emission (blue). Yellow-white mottled filaments within the Crab’s interior represent areas where dust and doubly ionized sulfur coincide. The observations were taken as part of General Observer program 1714.
: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, T. Temim (Princeton University)

A team of scientists used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to parse the composition of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus...

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