James Webb Space Telescope (Technical Post ONLY !)

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In visible light, Neptune appears blue due to small amounts of methane gas in its atmosphere. Webb’s NIRCam instrument instead observed Neptune at near-infrared wavelengths, so Neptune doesn’t look so blue!
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1572558267586322434
View: https://twitter.com/nasawebb/status/1572558267586322434


That’s no star. It’s Neptune’s large, unusual moon, Triton! Because Triton is covered in frozen, condensed nitrogen, it reflects 70% of the sunlight that hits it — making it appear very bright to Webb. 6 of Neptune’s other moons (labeled) are also seen here.
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Space, but make it goth! ️

If this new image from Webb’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) looks dark & moody, that's because things look different in this light than what you may be used to. These are the "bones” of galaxy IC 5332, usually hidden by dust: https://bit.ly/3dSuzrj
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View: https://twitter.com/nasawebb/status/1574761050154614786


In visible and ultraviolet light, @NASAHubble (left) shows dark regions of dust that separate the spiral arms. Webb (right) is able to peer through that dust in mid-infrared light, instead seeing patterns of gas that echo the arms’ shape.
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View: https://twitter.com/nasawebb/status/1574761051949768705


Different stars shine brighter at different wavelengths of light — so some stars are clearer in @NASAHubble’s view, while others are more visible with Webb. Taken together, these two views provide us a more complete understanding of galaxy IC 5332’s structure and composition.
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Grey Havoc said:
www.space.com

DART asteroid crash seen by James Webb, Hubble space telescopes (photos)

"For the first time, Webb and Hubble have simultaneously captured imagery from the same target in the cosmos."
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www.spacedaily.com

New asteroid strike images show impact 'a lot bigger than expected'

Paris (AFP) Sept 29, 2022 - The James Webb and Hubble telescopes on Thursday revealed their first images of a spacecraft deliberately smashing into an asteroid, as astronomers indicated that the impact looks to have been much greater than expected.
www.spacedaily.com
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"Hello darkness, my old friend"

A tiny snippet from our new #JWST data, showing a planetary system in the making, floating in space & silhouetted against the bright background light of the Orion Nebula.

1/
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https://twitter.com/x/status/1578416129596325888
View: https://twitter.com/markmccaughrean/status/1578416129596325888


The system comprises a young star, about 1 million years old, surrounded by a dense disk of gas & dust from which planets may be being built.

Seen edge-on from our perspective, the dust in the disk blocks light coming from the bright background nebula, making a silhouette.

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Such is the life scientific.

‘Bit of Panic’: Astronomers Forced to Rethink Early JWST Findings

Astronomers have been so keen to use the new James Webb Space Telescope that some have got a little ahead of themselves. Many started analysing Webb data right after the first batch was released, on 14 July, and quickly posted their results on preprint servers—but are now having to revise them. The telescope’s detectors had not been calibrated thoroughly when the first data were made available, and that fact slipped past some astronomers in their excitement.
The revisions don’t so far appear to substantially change many of the exciting early results, such as the discovery of a number of candidates for the most distant galaxy ever spotted. But the ongoing calibration process is forcing astronomers to reckon with the limitations of early data from Webb.
Figuring out how to redo the work is “thorny and annoying”, says Marco Castellano, an astronomer at the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics in Rome. “There’s been a lot of frustration,” says Garth Illingworth, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz. “I don’t think anybody really expected this to be as big of an issue as it’s becoming,” adds Guido Roberts-Borsani, an astronomer at the University of California, Los Angeles.
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Working with Webb data involves several types of calibration, but the current controversy is around one of the telescope’s main instruments, its Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam). In the six months after Webb launched, STScI researchers worked to calibrate NIRCam. But given the demands on Webb, they had only enough time to point it at one or two calibration stars, and to take data using just one of NIRCam’s ten detectors. They then estimated the calibrations for the other nine detectors. “That’s where there was a problem,” Boyer says. “Each detector will be a little bit different.”
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To try to standardize all the measurements, the STScI is working through a detailed plan to point Webb at several types of well-understood star, and observe them with every detector in every mode for every instrument on the telescope. “It just takes a while,” says Karl Gordon, an astronomer at the STScI who helps lead the effort.
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www.scientificamerican.com

'Bit of Panic': Astronomers Forced to Rethink Early JWST Findings

Revised calibrations for the James Webb Space Telescope’s instruments are bedeviling researchers studying the distant universe
www.scientificamerican.com www.scientificamerican.com
 
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View: https://twitter.com/nasawebb/status/1582736008260440066


This is what you’ve waited for.

Journey with us through Webb’s breathtaking view of the Pillars of Creation, where scores of newly formed stars glisten like dewdrops among floating, translucent columns of gas and dust: go.nasa.gov/3EPPiXW

Here’s your guided tour ⬇️
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www.nasa.gov

NASA’s Webb Takes Star-Filled Portrait of Pillars of Creation

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a lush, highly detailed landscape – the iconic Pillars of Creation – where new stars are forming within dense clouds of gas and dust.
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov
 
Flyaway said:
The James Webb Space Telescope has already traveled 1 million miles through space. Soon, the next-generation telescope will be making its way through the U.S. Postal Service.

The Postal Service announced Tuesday that the James Webb Space Telescope will be featured on new stamps becoming available September 8 (pre-orders begin Aug. 8). The image features the telescope's 18 gold-coated segments, which form a 21-foot mirror lens.

The new Forever stamps – priced at 60 cents, a pane of 20 is $12 – will feature the $10 billion scientific marvel, which sent back images earlier this month that wowed the scientific community and laypersons alike. The telescope, which was launched Dec. 25, 2021, is a joint project involving NASA, The Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency.
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eu.usatoday.com

James Webb Space Telescope will take flight as a US postage stamp in September

The U.S. Postal Service will be releasing new Forever stamps featuring the James Webb Space Telescope on September 8. Preorders begin Aug. 8
eu.usatoday.com
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Regarding that, also from September:
www.nasa.gov

US Postal Service Celebrates NASA’s Webb Telescope With New Stamp

The U.S. Postal Service will issue a stamp celebrating NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, the largest, most powerful, and most complex science telescope ever put in space.
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov
 
The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been observing for less than 4 months, but already a storm is brewing over access to its data. Webb images and spectra all end up in an archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, yet most of them aren’t freely available until 1 year after the data were collected. This gives the researchers who proposed the observations time to analyze them and publish results without being scooped.

But some astronomers question the practice, arguing that data from federally funded projects should be free for all to use. NASA, Webb’s primary backer, is facing an open data push from the White House and may soon end the restriction. Having so much Webb data locked away “doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s just not right,” says astronomer Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who from 2009 to 2017 chaired a committee advising STScI on Webb’s future science operations.

He and other proponents of an open data policy also make a practical argument. They say so-called proprietary time prevents other astronomers from using fresh data to shape their own observing plans, reducing the efficiency of a highly sought-after instrument that has consumed billions of dollars of public money.
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Science | AAAS

www.science.org www.science.org

As it says in the article the period should be reduced to six months. A year is an excess amount of time to hold the data back for a publicly funded instrument.

After often-heated debate, the Webb advisory committee that Illingworth chaired before the telescope’s launch urged that its proprietary period last just 6 months. Any longer, the committee concluded, and most of the data collected during the first year of observing, known as cycle 1, would be unavailable to astronomers trying to plan what to look for in cycle 2, or even some of cycle 3. For a mission then expected to only last 5 years, that was unsupportable in the view of some committee members.
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I wouldn’t expect to see any papers regarding the data taken at the TRAPPIST system a little while back until mid 2023 at the earliest. Same goes for any other potentially habitable exoplanets due to the need for much fact checking and peer reviewing of such significant data.
 
www.space.com

James Webb Space Telescope reveals alien planet's atmosphere like never before

WASP-39b is now the best-explored planet outside the solar system.
www.space.com www.space.com

EDIT: I had added this to the post before but fouled up somehow;
www.spacedaily.com

An exoplanet atmosphere as never seen before

Boston MA (SPX) Nov 23, 2022 - The JWST just scored another first: a detailed molecular and chemical portrait of a distant world's skies. The telescope's array of highly sensitive instruments was trained on the atmosphere o
www.spacedaily.com
 
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More to the above.

www.nasa.gov

NASA’s Webb Reveals an Exoplanet Atmosphere as Never Seen Before

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just scored another first: a molecular and chemical profile of a distant world’s skies.
www.nasa.gov www.nasa.gov

Nov 22, 2022

NASA’s Webb Reveals an Exoplanet Atmosphere as Never Seen Before
Lee esta historia en español aquí.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just scored another first: a molecular and chemical profile of a distant world’s skies.

While Webb and other space telescopes, including NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer, previously have revealed isolated ingredients of this broiling planet’s atmosphere, the new readings from Webb provide a full menu of atoms, molecules, and even signs of active chemistry and clouds.

The latest data also gives a hint of how these clouds might look up close: broken up rather than a single, uniform blanket over the planet.

The telescope’s array of highly sensitive instruments was trained on the atmosphere of WASP-39 b, a “hot Saturn” (a planet about as massive as Saturn but in an orbit tighter than Mercury) orbiting a star some 700 light-years away.

The findings bode well for the capability of Webb’s instruments to conduct the broad range of investigations of all types of exoplanets – planets around other stars – hoped for by the science community. That includes probing the atmospheres of smaller, rocky planets like those in the TRAPPIST-1 system.

“We observed the exoplanet with multiple instruments that, together, provide a broad swath of the infrared spectrum and a panoply of chemical fingerprints inaccessible until [this mission],” said Natalie Batalha, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who contributed to and helped coordinate the new research. “Data like these are a game changer.”

The suite of discoveries is detailed in a set of five new scientific papers, three of which are in press and two of which are under review. Among the unprecedented revelations is the first detection in an exoplanet atmosphere of sulfur dioxide (SO2), a molecule produced from chemical reactions triggered by high-energy light from the planet’s parent star. On Earth, the protective ozone layer in the upper atmosphere is created in a similar way.

“This is the first time we see concrete evidence of photochemistry – chemical reactions initiated by energetic stellar light – on exoplanets,” said Shang-Min Tsai, a researcher at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom and lead author of the paper explaining the origin of sulfur dioxide in WASP-39 b’s atmosphere. “I see this as a really promising outlook for advancing our understanding of exoplanet atmospheres with [this mission].”

This led to another first: scientists applying computer models of photochemistry to data that requires such physics to be fully explained. The resulting improvements in modeling will help build the technological know-how to interpret potential signs of habitability in the future.

“Planets are sculpted and transformed by orbiting within the radiation bath of the host star,” Batalha said. “On Earth, those transformations allow life to thrive.”

The planet’s proximity to its host star – eight times closer than Mercury is to our Sun – also makes it a laboratory for studying the effects of radiation from host stars on exoplanets. Better knowledge of the star-planet connection should bring a deeper understanding of how these processes affect the diversity of planets observed in the galaxy.

To see light from WASP-39 b, Webb tracked the planet as it passed in front of its star, allowing some of the star’s light to filter through the planet’s atmosphere. Different types of chemicals in the atmosphere absorb different colors of the starlight spectrum, so the colors that are missing tell astronomers which molecules are present. By viewing the universe in infrared light, Webb can pick up chemical fingerprints that can’t be detected in visible light.

Other atmospheric constituents detected by the Webb telescope include sodium (Na), potassium (K), and water vapor (H2O), confirming previous space and ground-based telescope observations as well as finding additional fingerprints of water, at these longer wavelengths, that haven’t been seen before.

Webb also saw carbon dioxide (CO2) at higher resolution, providing twice as much data as reported from its previous observations. Meanwhile, carbon monoxide (CO) was detected, but obvious signatures of both methane (CH4) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) were absent from the Webb data. If present, these molecules occur at very low levels.

To capture this broad spectrum of WASP-39 b’s atmosphere, an international team numbering in the hundreds independently analyzed data from four of the Webb telescope’s finely calibrated instrument modes.


“We had predicted what [the telescope] would show us, but it was more precise, more diverse, and more beautiful than I actually believed it would be,” said Hannah Wakeford, an astrophysicist at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom who investigates exoplanet atmospheres.

Having such a complete roster of chemical ingredients in an exoplanet atmosphere also gives scientists a glimpse of the abundance of different elements in relation to each other, such as carbon-to-oxygen or potassium-to-oxygen ratios. That, in turn, provides insight into how this planet – and perhaps others – formed out of the disk of gas and dust surrounding the parent star in its younger years.

WASP-39 b’s chemical inventory suggests a history of smashups and mergers of smaller bodies called planetesimals to create an eventual goliath of a planet.

“The abundance of sulfur [relative to] hydrogen indicated that the planet presumably experienced significant accretion of planetesimals that can deliver [these ingredients] to the atmosphere,” said Kazumasa Ohno, a UC Santa Cruz exoplanet researcher who worked on Webb data. “The data also indicates that the oxygen is a lot more abundant than the carbon in the atmosphere. This potentially indicates that WASP-39 b originally formed far away from the central star.”

In so precisely parsing an exoplanet atmosphere, the Webb telescope’s instruments performed well beyond scientists’ expectations – and promise a new phase of exploration among the broad variety of exoplanets in the galaxy.

“We are going to be able to see the big picture of exoplanet atmospheres,” said Laura Flagg, a researcher at Cornell University and a member of the international team. “It is incredibly exciting to know that everything is going to be rewritten. That is one of the best parts of being a scientist.”

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Media Contacts:

Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
robert.j.gutro@nasa.gov

Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
cpulliam@stsci.edu

Last Updated: Nov 22, 2022
Editor: Jamie Adkins
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Given that WASP-39b is only ~4.5 million miles from WASP-39 and is roughly the mass of Saturn (95 Earth masses) I wonder if it is in the process having its' atmosphere stripped away and turning into a Chthonic-planet?
 
NASA Webb Micrometeoroid Mitigation Update

Micrometeoroid strikes are an unavoidable aspect of operating any spacecraft. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope was engineered to withstand continual bombardment from these dust-sized particles moving at extreme velocities, to continue to generate groundbreaking science far into the future.

“We have experienced 14 measurable micrometeoroid hits on our primary mirror, and are averaging one to two per month, as anticipated. The resulting optical errors from all but one of these were well within what we had budgeted and expected when building the observatory,” said Mike Menzel, Webb lead mission systems engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “One of these was higher than our expectations and prelaunch models; however, even after this event our current optical performance is still twice as good as our requirements.”

To ensure all parts of the observatory continue to perform at their best, NASA convened a working group of optics and micrometeoroid experts from NASA Goddard‘s Webb team, the telescope’s mirror manufacturer, the Space Telescope Science Institute, and the NASA Meteoroid Environment Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. After thorough analysis, the team concluded the higher-energy impact observed in May was a rare statistical event both in terms of energy, and in hitting a particularly sensitive location on Webb’s primary mirror. To minimize future impacts of this magnitude, the team has decided that future observations will be planned to face away from what is now known as the ‘micrometeoroid avoidance zone.’

“Micrometeoroids that strike the mirror head on (moving opposite the direction the telescope is moving) have twice the relative velocity and four times the kinetic energy, so avoiding this direction when feasible will help extend the exquisite optical performance for decades,” said Lee Feinberg, Webb optical telescope element manager at NASA Goddard. This does not mean that these areas of the sky cannot be observed, only that observations of those objects will be more safely made at a different time in the year when Webb is in a different location in its orbit. Observations that are time critical, such as solar system targets, will still be done in the micrometeoroid avoidance zone if required. This adjustment to how Webb observations are scheduled will have a long-term statistical benefit.

The team will implement the micrometeoroid avoidance zone starting with Webb’s second year of science, or “Cycle 2.” More information and guidance for Cycle 2 is available on JWST Observer News.

-Thaddeus Cesari, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA Webb Micrometeoroid Mitigation Update – James Webb Space Telescope

blogs.nasa.gov blogs.nasa.gov
 
Webb tracks clouds on Saturn’s moon Titan
02/12/2022

These are images of Saturn’s moon Titan, captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam instrument on 4 November 2022. The image on the left uses a filter sensitive to Titan’s lower atmosphere. The bright spots are prominent clouds in the northern hemisphere. The image on the right is a color composite image. Click here for an annotated version of this image.

Titan is the only moon in the Solar System with a dense atmosphere, and it is also the only planetary body other than Earth that currently has rivers, lakes, and seas. Unlike Earth, however, the liquid on Titan’s surface is composed of hydrocarbons including methane and ethane, not water. Its atmosphere is filled with thick haze that obscures visible light reflecting off the surface.

Scientists have waited for years to use Webb’s infrared vision to study Titan’s atmosphere, including its fascinating weather patterns and gaseous composition, and also see through the haze to study albedo features (bright and dark patches) on the surface. Further Titan data are expected from NIRCam and NIRSpec as well as the first data from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) in May or June of 2023. The MIRI data will reveal an even greater part of Titan’s spectrum, including some wavelengths that have never before been seen. This will give scientists information about the complex gases in Titan’s atmosphere, as well as crucial clues to deciphering why Titan is the only moon in the Solar System with a dense atmosphere.

[Image Description: Side-by-side images of Saturn’s moon Titan, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera on 4 November 2022, with clouds and other features visible. Left image is various shades of red. Right image is shades of white, blue, and brown.]

www.esa.int

Webb tracks clouds on Saturn’s moon Titan

www.esa.int

James Webb Space Telescope and Keck Observatory spy Saturn’s moon Titan:

View: https://youtu.be/J6gPC90rrGs
 
New opinion piece from Scientific American on the propriety data period debate. I still think the eighteenth month period on the upper limit is too long.

NASA, as a federal agency that funds and conducts research, is onboard with the idea of freely accessible data. But it has a plan that goes much further than the White House’s and that is highly problematic. The agency currently gives a proprietary period to some scientists who use particular facilities, such as a 12-month period for the powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), so that those scientists can gather and analyze data carefully without fear of their work being poached. NASA is looking to end this policy in its effort to make science more open-access.

Losing this exclusivity would be really bad for astronomy and planetary science. Without a proprietary period, an astronomer with a brilliant insight might spend years developing it, months crafting a successful proposal to execute it, and precious hours of highly competitive JWST time to actually perform the observations—only to have someone else scoop up the data from a public archive and publish the result. This is a reasonable concern—such scooping has happened before.
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www.scientificamerican.com

NASA’s Plan to Make JWST Data Immediately Available Will Hurt Astronomy

By releasing astronomers’ data before they’ve had a chance to analyze the information, NASA will make research less fair and equitable
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Discovery and properties of the earliest galaxies with confirmed distances

Surveys with James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have discovered candidate galaxies in the first 400 Myr of cosmic time. The properties of these distant galaxies provide initial conditions for understanding early galaxy formation and cosmic reionisation. Preliminary indications have suggested these candidate galaxies may be more massive and abundant than previously thought. However, without spectroscopic confirmation of their distances to constrain their intrinsic brightnesses, their inferred properties remain uncertain. Here we report on four galaxies located in the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) imaging with photometric redshiftsz∼10−13 subsequently confirmed by JADES JWST Near- Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) observations. These galaxies include the first redshift z>12 systems both discovered and spectroscopically confirmed by JWST. Using stellar population modelling, we find the galaxies typically contain a hundred million solar masses in stars, in stellar populations that are less than one hundred million years old. The moderate star formation rates and compact sizes suggest elevated star formation rate surface densities, a key indicator of their formation pathways. Taken together, these measurements show that the first galaxies contributing to cosmic reionisation formed rapidly and with intense internal radiation fields.


NASA press release:

NASA’s Webb Reaches New Milestone in Quest for Distant Galaxies – James Webb Space Telescope

blogs.nasa.gov blogs.nasa.gov
 
Red Spiral Galaxies at Cosmic Noon Unveiled in the First JWST Image

Abstract
In the first image of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) of SMACS J0723.3-7327, one of the most outstanding features is the emergence of a large number of red spiral galaxies, because such red spiral galaxies are only a few percent in the number fraction among nearby spiral galaxies. While these apparently red galaxies were already detected with the Spitzer Space Telescope at ∼3–4 μm, the revolutionized view from the JWST's unprecedented spatial resolution has unveiled their hidden spiral morphology for the first time. Within the red spiral galaxies, we focus on the two reddest galaxies that are very faint in the <0.9 μm bands and show red colors in the 2–4 μm bands. Our study finds that the two extremely red spiral galaxies are likely to be in the cosmic noon (1 < z < 3). One of the extremely red spiral galaxies is more likely to be a passive galaxy having moderate dust reddening (i.e., ∼zero star formation rate with AV ~ 1 mag). The other is consistent with both passive and dusty starburst solutions (i.e., star formation rate > 100 M⊙ yr−1 with AV ∼ 3 mag). These "red spiral" galaxies would be an interesting, potentially new population of galaxies, as we start to see their detailed morphology using the JWST, for the first time.

ShieldSquare Captcha

iopscience.iop.org iopscience.iop.org
 
NASA Awards Contract to Maintain Webb Telescope Operations

NASA has selected Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation of Redondo Beach, California, to support the James Webb Space Telescope Phase E – Operations and Sustainment contract.

The contract is a sole source cost-plus-fixed-fee contract with a value of $31,186,099. The period of performance is from Dec. 25 to June 24, 2027. The contractor will provide the products and services required to monitor and maintain Webb spacecraft systems including the spacecraft bus, optics/telescope, and sunshield; maintain and update the spacecraft flight software; and trend spacecraft performance and recommend corrections and updates required for spacecraft health and safety.

The work will be performed at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and at the contractor’s facility.

NASA’s Webb telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb is helping solve mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit:

www.nasa.gov

NASA

NASA.gov brings you the latest news, images and videos from America's space agency, pioneering the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research.
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The Science Hour - JWST the first six months

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has produced amazing images in its first 5 months, but amazing science as well. Roland hears from one of the leading astronomers on the JWST programme, Dr Heidi Hammel, as well as other experts on what they are already learning about the first galaxies in the Universe, the birth places of stars, the strange behaviour of some other stars, and the first view of Neptune's rings in over 30 years.
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www.bbc.co.uk

The Science Hour - The James Webb Space Telescope - the first 6 months - BBC Sounds

NASA's James Webb Telescope: science in the images
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
 
First Look at z > 1 Bars in the Rest-Frame Near-Infrared with JWST Early CEERS Imaging

Stellar bars are key drivers of secular evolution in galaxies and can be effectively studied using rest-frame near-infrared (NIR) images, which trace the underlying stellar mass and are less impacted by dust and star formation than rest-frame UV or optical images. We leverage the power of {\it{JWST}} CEERS NIRCam images to present the first quantitative identification and characterization of stellar bars at z>1 based on rest-frame NIR F444W images of high resolution (~1.3 kpc at z ~ 1-3). We identify stellar bars in these images using quantitative criteria based on ellipse fits. For this pilot study, we present six examples of robustly identified bars at z>1 with spectroscopic redshifts, including the two highest redshift bars at ~2.136 and 2.312 quantitatively identified and characterized to date. The stellar bars at z ~ 1.1-2.3 presented in our study have projected semi-major axes of ~2.9-4.3 kpc and projected ellipticities of ~0.41-0.53 in the rest-frame NIR. The barred host galaxies have stellar masses ~ 1×1010 to 2×1011 M⊙, star formation rates of ~ 21-295 M⊙ yr−1, and several have potential nearby companions. Our finding of bars at z ~1.1-2.3 demonstrates the early onset of such instabilities and supports simulations where bars form early in massive dynamically cold disks. It also suggests that if these bars at lookback times of 8-10 Gyr survive out to present epochs, bar-driven secular processes may operate over a long time and have a significant impact on some galaxies by z ~ 0.


James Webb telescope reveals Milky Way–like galaxies in young universe

New images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal for the first time galaxies with stellar bars—elongated features of stars stretching from the centers of galaxies into their outer disks—at a time when the universe was a mere 25% of its present age. The finding of so-called barred galaxies, similar to our Milky Way, this early in the universe will require astrophysicists to refine their theories of galaxy evolution.
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phys.org

James Webb telescope reveals Milky Way–like galaxies in young universe

New images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal for the first time galaxies with stellar bars—elongated features of stars stretching from the centers of galaxies into their outer disks—at a time when the universe was a mere 25% of its present age. The finding of so-called barred...
phys.org

View: https://youtu.be/wpgzLNE02mA
 
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has had its first look at a hotly anticipated set of targets — the atmospheres of some of the seven Earth-sized planets circling the star TRAPPIST-1, just 12 parsecs (39 light years) from Earth. All seven lie in or near their star’s habitable zone, where liquid water could exist, and astronomers consider them the best known laboratory for studying what might make planets beyond the Solar System suitable for life.
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www.nature.com

JWST gets first glimpse of 7-planet system with potentially habitable worlds

Astronomers have been eager for the landmark telescope to study the TRAPPIST-1 system.
www.nature.com www.nature.com
 
Flyaway said:
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has had its first look at a hotly anticipated set of targets — the atmospheres of some of the seven Earth-sized planets circling the star TRAPPIST-1, just 12 parsecs (39 light years) from Earth. All seven lie in or near their star’s habitable zone, where liquid water could exist, and astronomers consider them the best known laboratory for studying what might make planets beyond the Solar System suitable for life.
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www.nature.com

JWST gets first glimpse of 7-planet system with potentially habitable worlds

Astronomers have been eager for the landmark telescope to study the TRAPPIST-1 system.
www.nature.com www.nature.com
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It would be interesting to see if and when JWST discover water on the Earth like planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system, for the TRAPPIST-1 system to have 7 Earth like planets orbiting the star makes our solar system look a bit normal by comparison.
 
According to TheSpaceBucket the JWST has discovered its first Earth-like exoplanet:


It has officially been over a year since the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in December 2021. In the time since then, NASA and this next generation telescope have been very busy trying to make use of the limited amount of time available with this technology. However, the agency recently revealed one of the most significant discoveries yet.
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Yesterday confirmed its first exoplanet thanks to Webb. These first observational results found an Earth-size, rocky planet that could open the door to many future possibilities. At 99% of Earth’s diameter, it’s almost exactly the same size as our home world. Over time NASA has discovered thousands of different exoplanets within the universe.
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What makes this specific discovery so special has to do with Webb’s next steps and the upcoming discoveries. One of the main uses of the James Webb Space Telescope is to study the atmospheres of exoplanets, to search for the building blocks of life elsewhere in the universe. Here I will go more in-depth into this first exoplanet discovery, the significance of the event, what Webb plans to do next, and more.
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No doubt there will be more such discoveries in the near future.
 
JWST will use MIRI and its coronagraph to directly image alpha Cen A this summer.

Bad news it has a 12-month proprietary period, so no public results until the summer of 2024.

www.stsci.edu

Program Information

Use the program information tool to obtain information about a specific James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observing program.
www.stsci.edu www.stsci.edu
 
Flyaway said:
Webb confirms its first exoplanet

Researchers have confirmed the presence of an exoplanet, a planet that orbits another star, using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope for the first time. Formally classified as LHS 475 b, the planet is almost exactly the same size as our own, clocking in at 99% of Earth’s diameter.
Click to expand...

www.esa.int

Exoplanet LHS 475 b (NIRSpec transit light curve)

www.esa.int
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Well done JWST on discovering your first exoplanet, and an Earthlike planet as well having almost 99% of Earth's diameter too. The first of many more.
 
Flyaway said:
JWST will use MIRI and its coronagraph to directly image alpha Cen A this summer.

Bad news it has a 12-month proprietary period, so no public results until the summer of 2024.

www.stsci.edu

Program Information

Use the program information tool to obtain information about a specific James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) observing program.
www.stsci.edu www.stsci.edu
Click to expand...
Thanks a lot !

Good news. As a yellow star and part of the three closest stars to our sun (along with Alpha Cen B and Proxima, the other two stars in their triple system), Alpha Cen A is likely the most interesting near-Earth star.

On its Wikipedia page, I just learned (after seeing your post) that we MAY have already found a planet for him in 2021 (I had missed this information despite my interest in the subject). The problem is that it would be of an intermediate size between Neptune and Saturn (it would therefore be a gas giant...) and at a distance of 1.1 astronomical units. If it would be confirmed, it would occupy the optimal place for a telluric planet supporting life like Earth and probably it would prevent the presence of livable telluric planets near it, unless it has one as a satellite... But it will take a longer time to locate it...

Despite this, let's hope we can still find a planet supporting life near Alpha Cen A* :)


*even if it's not the same as the one in the Avatar movies ;)
 
FighterJock said:
Flyaway said:
Webb confirms its first exoplanet

Researchers have confirmed the presence of an exoplanet, a planet that orbits another star, using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope for the first time. Formally classified as LHS 475 b, the planet is almost exactly the same size as our own, clocking in at 99% of Earth’s diameter.
Click to expand...

www.esa.int

Exoplanet LHS 475 b (NIRSpec transit light curve)

www.esa.int
Click to expand...

Well done JWST on discovering your first exoplanet, and an Earthlike planet as well having almost 99% of Earth's diameter too. The first of many more.
Click to expand...
They are going to try to directly image a planet half the size of Jupiter! Even if they don't succeed, they get to try out a technique that may be used in the future.
 
Kinematics and Origin of Gas in the Disk Galaxy NGC 2655

The new observational data concerning distribution, excitation, and kinematics of the ionized gas in the giant early-type disk galaxy NGC 2655 obtained at the 6m telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO RAS) and at the 2.5m telescope of the Caucasian Mountain Observatory of the Sternberg Astronomical Institute (CMO SAI MSU) are presented in this work. The joint analysis of these and earlier spectral observations has allowed us to make a conclusion about multiple nature of the gas in NGC 2655. Together with a proper large gaseous disk experiencing regular circular rotation in the equatorial plane of the stellar potential of the galaxy for billions years, we observe also remnants of a merged small satellite having striked the central part of NGC 2655 almost vertically for some 10 million years ago.


phys.org

Study investigates kinematics and origin of gas in the galaxy NGC 2655

Using the 6-meter telescope of the Special Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) and the 2.5-meter telescope of the Caucasian Mountain Observatory (CMO), Russian astronomers have observed a giant galaxy known as NGC 2655. Results of the observational campaign, presented January 12 on the arXiv...
phys.org phys.org
 

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