The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) thread

HELLFIRE

Resurrecting this because it was alot of fun to follow in DSLR. Yeah, it cost alot of money and was years late... but for what it's put out since... I think it's safe to say "WOW!" is not an undeserved descriptor!

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/space-images-from-nasas-webb-featured-on-two-new-u-s-stamps/

The U.S. Postal Service has issued two new stamps featuring iconic images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The stamps, issued Jan. 21, highlight a galaxy and a star cluster captured by Webb’s powerful infrared view of the universe. Webb is a mission led by NASA in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

...I may have to see what contacts south of the 49th I have that can get me a couple of these stamps... 🙂

Regards

Adalicia

HELLFIRE
Was easily one of the best threads the Pub had in a long time. Glad to see it make a return.

Guy54435

HELLFIRE Star Cluster stamps: https://store.usps.com/store/product/star-cluster-stamps-S_129404
Spiral Galaxy stamps: https://store.usps.com/store/product/spiral-galaxy-stamps-S_123004

HooRU

Being I'm an optics guy, I'm a big fan. The discoveries are putting scientists on their heads breaking expectations and changing science. I wish I had worked with the team at JPL that put this into reality.

An even bigger telescope that will handle Vis and and IR is proposed next, I doubt it will be in my lifetime though.

There is also talk of putting micro telescopes, a Swarm of them, out somewhere before the OORT cloud to image extrasolar planets. If that happens it will shock non believers in science.
Ir was the ideal choice for this.
What many people don't realize is that we've had many telescopes in space, some of which are no longer working.
The full EM spectrum is covered in space.

HELLFIRE

Adalicia
Happy to bring it back... and looking forward to more WOW!"-worthy stuff in the future!

Regards

HELLFIRE

https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/12/james_webb_asteroid_measuring/ -- James Webb Space Telescope to size up asteroid 2024 YR4 before it rocks our world
https://blogs.esa.int/rocketscience/2025/02/10/james-webb-space-telescope-will-study-asteroid-2024-yr4/

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is to be pointed at asteroid 2024 YR4 to reduce uncertainty regarding the chances of the object impacting Earth in the coming years. The asteroid is not particularly large – the best guess is that it measures somewhere between 40 and 90 meters (130-295 feet) – and there is an approximately 98 percent chance it will safely pass the Earth on December 22, 2032, but if it impacts the planet, the consequences for the affected region could be dire. Although scientists won't be able to determine definitively whether the asteroid will closely approach Earth until 2028, using the JWST will allow the significance of the impact to be predicted by reducing the uncertainty surrounding the size of the object. The European Space Agency (ESA) pointed out: "The hazard represented by a 40 m asteroid is very different from that of a 90 m asteroid." ... Scientists plan to use the observatory's MIRI instrument to measure the infrared light (heat) emitted by 2024 YR4. The plan is to use this data to better estimate the asteroid's size and feed that into response planning. ...

Regards

HELLFIRE

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/webb-maps-full-picture-of-how-phoenix-galaxy-cluster-forms-stars/ -- Webb Maps Full Picture of How Phoenix Galaxy Cluster Forms Stars

Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have finally solved the mystery of how a massive galaxy cluster is forming stars at such a high rate. The confirmation from Webb builds on more than a decade of studies using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, as well as several ground-based observatories. ... “We can compare our previous studies of the Phoenix cluster, which found differing cooling rates at different temperatures, to a ski slope,” said Michael McDonald of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, principal investigator of the program. “The Phoenix cluster has the largest reservoir of hot, cooling gas of any galaxy cluster — analogous to having the busiest chair lift, bringing the most skiers to the top of the mountain. However, not all of those skiers were making it down the mountain, meaning not all the gas was cooling to low temperatures. If you had a ski slope where there were significantly more people getting off the ski lift at the top than were arriving at the bottom, that would be a problem!” ... To date, in the Phoenix cluster, the numbers weren’t adding up, and researchers were missing a piece of the process. Webb has now found those proverbial skiers at the middle of the mountain, in that it has tracked and mapped the missing cooling gas that will ultimately feed star formation. Most importantly, this intermediary warm gas was found within cavities tracing the very hot gas, a searing 18 million degrees Fahrenheit, and the already cooled gas around 18,000 degrees Fahrenheit. ...

Regards

HELLFIRE

Missed this when it was released : https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/webb-reveals-rapid-fire-light-show-from-milky-ways-central-black-hole/ -- Webb Reveals Rapid-Fire Light Show From Milky Way’s Central Black Hole (Feb 18)

The supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way appears to be having a party, complete with a disco ball-style light show. Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a team of astrophysicists has gained the longest, most detailed glimpse yet of the “void” that lurks in the middle of our galaxy. They found that the swirling disk of gas and dust (or accretion disk) orbiting the central supermassive black hole, called Sagittarius A, is emitting a constant stream of flares with no periods of rest. The level of activity occurs over a wide range of time — from short interludes to long stretches. While some flares are faint flickers, lasting mere seconds, other flares are blindingly bright eruptions, which spew daily. There also are even fainter changes that surge over months. The new findings could help physicists better understand the fundamental nature of black holes, how they get fed from their surrounding environments, and the dynamics and evolution of our own galaxy. The study published in the Feb. 18 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. ... To conduct the study, Yusef-Zadeh and his team used Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) to observe Sagittarius A for a total of 48 hours in 8- to 10-hour increments across one year. This enabled them to track how the black hole changed over time. While the team expected to see flares, Sagittarius A* was more active than they anticipated. The observations revealed ongoing fireworks of various brightnesses and durations. The accretion disk surrounding the black hole generated five to six big flares per day and several small sub-flares or bursts in between. ...

Regards

HooRU

I hope I live long enough to see this happen and observe for a few years:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Ultraviolet_Optical_Infrared_Surveyor

A different telescope from the JWST, but also using segmented primary mirror that is huge!

It would cover IR, ViS, and UV. And happen in the late 30's

grand_total

HooRU How did they not manage to name this the Large Optical Ultraviolet Infrared Surveyor - LOUIS?

HELLFIRE

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasa-webb-wows-with-incredible-detail-in-actively-forming-star-system/ – NASA Webb Wows With Incredible Detail in Actively Forming Star System (Mar 7)

High-resolution near-infrared light captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows extraordinary new detail and structure in Lynds 483 (L483). Two actively forming stars are responsible for the shimmering ejections of gas and dust that gleam in orange, blue, and purple in this representative color image. Over tens of thousands of years, the central protostars have periodically ejected some of the gas and dust, spewing it out as tight, fast jets and slightly slower outflows that “trip” across space. When more recent ejections hit older ones, the material can crumple and twirl based on the densities of what is colliding. Over time, chemical reactions within these ejections and the surrounding cloud have produced a range of molecules, like carbon monoxide, methanol, and several other organic compounds. The two protostars responsible for this scene are at the center of the hourglass shape, in an opaque horizontal disk of cold gas and dust that fits within a single pixel. Much farther out, above and below the flattened disk where dust is thinner, the bright light from the stars shines through the gas and dust, forming large semi-transparent orange cones. It’s equally important to notice where the stars’ light is blocked — look for the exceptionally dark, wide V-shapes offset by 90 degrees from the orange cones. These areas may look like there is no material, but it’s actually where the surrounding dust is the densest, and little starlight penetrates it. If you look carefully at these areas, Webb’s sensitive NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) has picked up distant stars as muted orange pinpoints behind this dust. Where the view is free of obscuring dust, stars shine brightly in white and blue. …

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-peers-deeper-into-mysterious-flame-nebula/ – NASA’s Webb Peers Deeper into Mysterious Flame Nebula (Mar 10)

The Flame Nebula, located about 1,400 light-years away from Earth, is a hotbed of star formation less than 1 million years old. Within the Flame Nebula, there are objects so small that their cores will never be able to fuse hydrogen like full-fledged stars—brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs, often called “failed stars,” over time become very dim and much cooler than stars. These factors make observing brown dwarfs with most telescopes difficult, if not impossible, even at cosmically short distances from the Sun. When they are very young, however, they are still relatively warmer and brighter and therefore easier to observe despite the obscuring, dense dust and gas that comprises the Flame Nebula in this case. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope can pierce this dense, dusty region and see the faint infrared glow from young brown dwarfs. A team of astronomers used this capability to explore the lowest mass limit of brown dwarfs within the Flame Nebula. The result, they found, were free-floating objects roughly two to three times the mass of Jupiter, although they were sensitive down to 0.5 times the mass of Jupiter. … Brown dwarfs, given the difficulty of finding them, have a wealth of information to provide, particularly in star formation and planetary research given their similarities to both stars and planets. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has been on the hunt for these brown dwarfs for decades. Even though Hubble can’t observe the brown dwarfs in the Flame Nebula to as low a mass as Webb can, it was crucial in identifying candidates for further study. This study is an example of how Webb took the baton—decades of Hubble data from the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex—and enabled in-depth research. …

Regards

HELLFIRE

Surprised this didn’t make any noise yet – https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-images-young-giant-exoplanets-detects-carbon-dioxide/ – NASA’s Webb Images Young, Giant Exoplanets, Detects Carbon Dioxide

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured direct images of multiple gas giant planets within an iconic planetary system. HR 8799, a young system 130 light-years away, has long been a key target for planet formation studies. The observations indicate that the well-studied planets of HR 8799 are rich in carbon dioxide gas. This provides strong evidence that the system’s four giant planets formed much like Jupiter and Saturn, by slowly building solid cores that attract gas from within a protoplanetary disk, a process known as core accretion. The results also confirm that Webb can infer the chemistry of exoplanet atmospheres through imaging. This technique complements Webb’s powerful spectroscopic instruments, which can resolve the atmospheric composition. … HR 8799 is a young system about 30 million years old, a fraction of our solar system’s 4.6 billion years. Still hot from their tumultuous formation, the planets within HR 8799 emit large amounts of infrared light that give scientists valuable data on how they formed. … Of the nearly 6,000 exoplanets discovered, few have been directly imaged, as even giant planets are many thousands of times fainter than their stars. The images of HR 8799 and 51 Eridani were made possible by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) coronagraph, which blocks light from bright stars to reveal otherwise hidden worlds. This technology allowed the team to look for infrared light emitted by the planets in wavelengths that are absorbed by specific gases. The team found that the four HR 8799 planets contain more heavy elements than previously thought. …

Regards

HELLFIRE

https://www.theregister.com/2025/03/28/james_webb_interview/ – From concept to cosmos: Webb engineers on the telescope that changed everything

Interview The team behind the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) just scored the Simon Ramo Medal, given by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) for exceptional achievement in systems engineering and systems science. The award is well deserved, considering how the JWST – a project with contributors including NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) – turned out. After decades of work and rework, the observatory was launched on December 25, 2021, and reached its final destination a month later. The first images were made public a few months after that. While medals cannot be minted for the thousands behind the observatory, Mike Menzel and Bill Ochs of NASA, along with Scott Willoughby of Northrop Grumman, are to receive the award. The Register spoke to Menzel and Willoughby about the trials and tribulations of bringing the JWST from mission concept to space. The spacecraft was famously over budget and schedule. The problem was how to create an estimate for something that had never been done before. Menzel, NASA mission systems engineer, explains: “It’s classic systems engineering iterations. You take a stab at it, you put the design on a piece of paper, and then you analyze it.” … Menzel, who was chief engineer for the project, says: “The problem that we have is that James Webb was the first and only of its kind. When it comes to cost, you just do the best you can to do the estimates. But the truth be told, you’re never going to find the real problems until you get deep into the design. That’s just the way it is.” … Willoughby agrees. “Half of the single-point failures were in the sunshield.” He tells us that out of the 178 release bolts used to secure the observatory, 107 were in the sunshield. And those bolts couldn’t be released using explosives for fear of damaging the spacecraft and its electronics. …

Regards

HELLFIRE

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-telescope-unmasks-true-nature-of-the-cosmic-tornado/ – NASA’s Webb Telescope Unmasks True Nature of the Cosmic Tornado

Craving an ice cream sundae with a cherry on top? This random alignment of Herbig-Haro 49/50 — a frothy-looking outflow from a nearby protostar — with a multi-hued spiral galaxy may do the trick. This new composite image combining observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) provides a high-resolution view to explore the exquisite details of this bubbling activity. Herbig-Haro objects are outflows produced by jets launched from a nearby, forming star. The outflows, which can extend for light-years, plow into a denser region of material. This creates shock waves, heating the material to higher temperatures. The material then cools by emitting light at visible and infrared wavelengths. …

In glorious 1,645px × 2,000px resolution

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasa-webb-explores-effect-of-strong-magnetic-fields-on-star-formation/ – NASA Webb Explores Effect of Strong Magnetic Fields on Star Formation

Follow-up research on a 2023 image of the Sagittarius C stellar nursery in the heart of our Milky Way galaxy, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, has revealed ejections from still-forming protostars and insights into the impact of strong magnetic fields on interstellar gas and the life cycle of stars. “A big question in the Central Molecular Zone of our galaxy has been, if there is so much dense gas and cosmic dust here, and we know that stars form in such clouds, why are so few stars born here?” said astrophysicist John Bally of the University of Colorado Boulder, one of the principal investigators. “Now, for the first time, we are seeing directly that strong magnetic fields may play an important role in suppressing star formation, even at small scales.” Detailed study of stars in this crowded, dusty region has been limited, but Webb’s advanced near-infrared instruments have allowed astronomers to see through the clouds to study young stars like never before. …

Regards

OmegaWolf747

So… the James Webb is finding all these bright, complex galaxies at the edge of the observable universe. According to conventional science, it should’ve only found small, dim, inchoate blobs. Does this give credence to Penrose’s conformal cyclic cosmology, with those galaxies being leftovers of a bygone aeon?

HELLFIRE

OmegaWolf747 Penrose’s conformal cyclic cosmology

It’s Sunday AM and you’re going to make me look up what this is? XD XD

Otherwise, I’m just going to stick with this

“I would rather have questions that can’t be answered than answers that can’t be questioned.”
― Richard Feynman

…as there’s no doubt much more work to do yet 🙂

Regards

HELLFIRE

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasa-webbs-autopsy-of-planet-swallowed-by-star-yields-surprise/ – NASA Webb’s Autopsy of Planet Swallowed by Star Yields Surprise

Observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have provided a surprising twist in the narrative surrounding what is believed to be the first star observed in the act of swallowing a planet. The new findings suggest that the star actually did not swell to envelop a planet as previously hypothesized. Instead, Webb’s observations show the planet’s orbit shrank over time, slowly bringing the planet closer to its demise until it was engulfed in full. “Because this is such a novel event, we didn’t quite know what to expect when we decided to point this telescope in its direction,” said Ryan Lau, lead author of the new paper and astronomer at NSF NOIRLab (National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory) in Tucson, Arizona. “With its high-resolution look in the infrared, we are learning valuable insights about the final fates of planetary systems, possibly including our own.” … Researchers suggest that, at one point, the planet was about Jupiter-sized, but orbited quite close to the star, even closer than Mercury’s orbit around our Sun. Over millions of years, the planet orbited closer and closer to the star, leading to the catastrophic consequence. …

D**nit, no one has video of this event?! Surprised this story isn’t making a splash in the news…

Regards

InternetJeff

Intriguing…

Webb Telescope finds possible signs of life.

Possible signs of alien life found on nearby exoplanet, study reports

“Given everything we know about this planet, a Hycean world with an ocean that is teeming with life is the scenario that best fits the data we have.”

https://www.space.com/the-universe/exoplanets/possible-signs-of-alien-life-found-on-nearby-exoplanet-study-reports

broknsymetry

InternetJeff “a Hycean world with an ocean that is teeming with life”

Fishing trip!

HELLFIRE

broknsymetry Fishing trip!

Enceladus and Europa are closer…

Regards