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The latest discoveries were made by Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) instrument as part of the James Webb Observations of Young ProtoStars (JOYS+) program and revealed key chemical ingredients astronomers are looking for in the search for distant worlds that could be home to life.Given that they are young protostars, IRAS 2A and IRAS 23385 do not appear to have planets in orbits around them yet. However, the detections of organic molecules around them are promising indicators for regions of future habitability.Along with the detection of ethanol, MIRI has also detected what astronomers believe is probably acetic acid, an ingredient commonly...

The unexpected discovery of the dwarf galaxy PEARLSDG, which is isolated and quiescent, challenges established views on galaxy evolution and highlights the capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope in uncovering cosmic phenomena. (Artist’s concept.) Credit: SciTechDaily.com PEARLSDG, an isolated dwarf galaxy found by the James Webb Space Telescope, defies standard galactic evolution theories by not forming new stars, indicating a need to revise our understanding of galaxies. A team of astronomers, led by Arizona State University Assistant Research Scientist Tim Carleton, has discovered a dwarf galaxy that appeared in James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) imaging that wasn’t the primary...

Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have made a groundbreaking discovery: a galaxy that ceased forming new stars over 13 billion years ago, making it the oldest ‘dead’ galaxy ever observed. The galaxy, which existed a mere 700 million years after the Big Bang, is odd by galactic standards. Now, based on recent findings, it’s also challenging our understanding of early galaxy evolution. In research led by Tobias J. Looser and an international team of astronomers, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered an ancient quiescent galaxy. At a redshift of z=7.3, it is the oldest galaxy...

Combination of a Hubble Space Telescope image of SN 1987A and the compact argon source. The faint blue source in the centre is the emission from the compact source detected with the JWST/NIRSpec instrument. Outside this is the stellar debris, containing most of the mass, expanding at thousands of km/second. The inner bright "string of pearls" is the gas from the outer layers of the star that was expelled about 20,000 years before the final explosion. The is the fast debris are now colliding with the ring, explaining the bright spots. Outside of the inner ring are two outer rings,...

Image of Uranus from Webb It seems crazy that Uranus was discovered in 1781 yet here we are, in 2024 and we have only sent one spacecraft to explore Uranus. Voyager 2 is the only spacecraft to have given us close-up images of Uranus (and Neptune) but since their visit in 1986, we have not returned. There have of course been great images from the Hubble Space Telescope and from the James Webb Space Telescope but we still have lots to learn about them. The discovery of Uranus was accidental! British astronomer William Herschel was surveying stars that were too...

Researchers are analyzing distant galaxies when the universe was only 600 million to 6 billion years old. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, Steve Finkelstein (UT Austin), Micaela Bagley (UT Austin), Rebecca Larson (UT Austin) Researchers analyzing images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have found that galaxies in the early universe are often flat and elongated, like surfboards and pool noodles – and are rarely round, like volleyballs or frisbees. “Roughly 50 to 80% of the galaxies we studied appear to be flattened in two dimensions,” explained lead author Viraj Pandya, a NASA Hubble Fellow at Columbia University in New York....

Whirlpool Galaxy, photographed by the Webb Space Telescope. Photo: NASA ESA Webb / A Adamo ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Introduction by Asia Times Science Editor Jonathan Tennenbaum In September Eric Lerner created a sensation with his Asia Times article, “Saying goodbye to the Big Bang,” arguing that the Big Bang theory is contradicted by an overwhelming mass of astronomical evidence accumulated over decades, including recent data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Eric Lerner ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The data forced even a pair of hitherto staunch advocates of the Big Bang, the well-known astrophysicists Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser, to admit that something must be...

The Orion: A molecular cloud shows cosmic filamentary structures where stars are being born. Image: ESA / Herschel / Ph. André, D Polychroni, A. Roy, V Könyves, N Schneider for the Gould Belt survey Key Program ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In the first part of this series, we saw that electromagnetic processes in plasmas – electrically conducting gases – could, over trillions of years, produce the giant filaments that we see today as the largest structures in the universe. This happened without a Big Bang, without dark energy or dark matter, based on processes that we observe here on Earth in the laboratory...

The James Webb Space Telescope peered 13.4 billion years into the past and found a black hole-sized conundrum. The oldest supermassive black hole astronomers have ever seen is gorging messily on the heart of its host galaxy, which may ultimately doom the black hole along with its prey. In the process, this ancient black hole — or at least as it looked 13.4 billion years ago — may offer important clues about how the universe’s first supermassive black holes formed and grew. University of Cambridge astrophysicist Roberto Maiolino and his colleagues recently used the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) instruments...

Today, supermassive black holes and their host galaxies tell a specific story in terms of mass. But JWST reveals a different story early on. primordial black holes The overdense regions that the Universe was born with grow and grow over time, but are limited in their growth by both the initial small sizes of the overdensities and also by the presence of radiation that's still energetic, which prevents structure from growing any faster. It takes tens-to-hundreds of millions of years to form the first stars; clumps of matter exist long before that, however, and some may directly collapse to form...

Illustration of how a failed supernova can become a black hole. (P. Jeffries/STScI/NASA/ESA) In 2009 a giant star 25 times more massive than the Sun simply…vanished. Okay, it wasn't quite that simple. It underwent a period of brightening, increasing in luminosity to a million Suns, just as if it was ready to explode into a supernova. But then it faded rather than exploding. And when astronomers tried to see the star, using the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), Hubble, and the Spitzer space telescope, they couldn't see anything. The star, known as N6946-BH1, is now considered a failed supernova. The BH1...

Explanation: Ringed ice giant Neptune lies near the center of this sharp near-infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope. The dim and distant world is the farthest planet from the Sun, about 30 times farther away than planet Earth. But in the stunning Webb view, the planet's dark and ghostly appearance is due to atmospheric methane that absorbs infrared light. High altitude clouds that reach above most of Neptune's absorbing methane easily stand out in the image though. Coated with frozen nitrogen, Neptune's largest moon Triton is brighter than Neptune in reflected sunlight, seen at the upper left sporting...

The beam of light coming from the telescope is then shown in deep blue entering the instrument through the pick-off mirror located at the top of the instrument and acting like a periscope. Then, a series of mirrors redirect the light toward the bottom of the instruments where a set of 4 spectroscopic modules are located. Once there, the beam of light is divided by optical elements called dichroics in 4 beams corresponding to different parts of the mid-infrared region. Each beam enters its own integral field unit; these components split and reformat the light from the whole field of...

The location of the most distant galaxy ever detected. (NASA, ESA, CSA, M. Zamani/ESA/Webb) Light that has traveled for over 13.4 billion years to reach our neighborhood of space has been confirmed as originating from the earliest, most distant galaxy detected yet. That places the most distant of these four very young objects at the very dawn of the Universe, just a short time after the Big Bang – a time period when the Universe was still foggy and bleary and the first rays of light were penetrating the darkness. So detailed are the JWST's long spectroscopic observations that researchers...

Last week, NASA administrator Bill Nelson told us we'd see the "deepest image of our Universe that has ever been taken" on July 12, thanks to the newly operational James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). And we know many of you excitedly marked the date in your calendar. But over the weekend the space agency announced that they'd actually be releasing one the very first image a day ahead of schedule – at 5pm EDT (2100 UTC and 7am AEST on Tuesday 12 July). The first image will be released by US President Joe Biden in a special live stream that...

Industrial-scale agriculture has changed the make up of our atmosphere. So "exofarms" ought to be visible on Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. One of the key developments separating modern civilization from the hunter gatherer societies of the past is the invention of farming, which took place about 10,000 years ago. This began with the cultivation of wild plants and the domestication of various animals for dairy products and meat. The big advantage of farming is that it sustains a much larger population than hunting and gathering. This led to the emergence of cities, the sharing of natural resources and of...

NASA's next-generation space observatory successfully watched a moving asteroid as the telescope inches towards the end of its six-month commissioning period. The successful tracking of a nearby object shows that the James Webb Space Telescope can keep a watch on solar system objects as well as the distant galaxies, stars and other faraway objects it is expected to observe in its perhaps 20-year lifespan. asteroid named after Tenzing Norgay. The Tibetan mountaineer was one of the first two known individuals to summit Mount Everest, alongside Edmund Hillary. Coincidentally, the Webb observations took place just days before the 69th anniversary of...

Webb MIRI and Spitzer Comparison Image Comparison of a Webb Space Telescope Mid-Infrared Instrument image of the Large Magellanic Cloud and a past image of the same view using the Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Array Camera. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech (left), NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI (right) ************************************************************************ NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is aligned across all four of its science instruments, as seen in a previous engineering image showing the observatory’s full field of view. Now, we take a closer look at that same image, focusing on Webb’s coldest instrument: the Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI. The MIRI test image (at 7.7 microns) shows part of...

The Webb Space Telescope is in its final (seventh) stage of alignment, bringing the superlative spacecraft tantalizingly close to commencing its scientific operations. Webb, in an artist’s rendering.Illustration: NASA GSFC/CIL/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez This alignment stage involves final tweaks to the telescope’s primary mirrors and is happening right on schedule, four months after the spacecraft’s launch from French Guiana. Unlike the earlier alignment stages, each of which had a specifically outlined goal—stacking images of a specific star, for example—the seventh (and final) stage merely repeats certain checks made previously, to ensure everything is as precise as possible. Meanwhile, the crucial Mid-Infrared...

At 11:30 AM (PST) - 62,500 miles from L2 - 836,000 miles from Earth - Current speed 555 mph - Speed will decline to about 325 mph before it enters L2 orbit in five days - Temperature of "hot" side has been stable since sun shield deployment, 133F and 50F - Cold side shows modest cooling, minus 340F and minus 330F - When operational, the cold side will be minus 388F - Webb actually has heaters to keep temp loss very slow to protect equipment and to avoid ice forming from any Earth moisture - Currently, Webb is retracting pegs...