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Explanation: A mere 280 light-years from Earth, tidally locked, Jupiter-sized exoplanet WASP-43b orbits its parent star once every 0.8 Earth days. That puts it about 2 million kilometers (less than 1/25th the orbital distance of Mercury) from a small, cool sun. Still, on a dayside always facing its parent star, temperatures approach a torrid 2,500 degrees F as measured at infrared wavelengths by the MIRI instrument on board the James Webb Space Telescope. In this illustration of the hot exoplanet's orbit, Webb measurements also show nightside temperatures remain above 1,000 degrees F. That suggests that strong equatorial winds circulate the...

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...

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...

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...

NASA James Webb Space Telescope Multilayered Sunshield In this illustration, the multilayered sunshield on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope stretches out beneath the observatory’s honeycomb mirror. The sunshield is the first step in cooling down Webb’s infrared instruments, but the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) requires additional help to reach its operating temperature. Credit: NASA GSFC/CIL/Adriana Manrique Gutierrez The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has four observational modes. After measuring increased friction in one of the grating wheels used in MIRI’s medium resolution spectrometry (MRS) mode, the Webb team paused science observations using this specific mode on August...

Rome - SNIPPET: "Moroccan Mohammed Essadek, 39, and Tunisian Sghaier Miri, 34, left Italy late on Saturday. Essadek had been living in the northern Treviso region. Miri, from the Udinese region in the northeast, was considered to be one of the leaders of the local Muslim community, the agency reported. Investigators alleged that Miri had links with members of Islamist fundamentalist groups active in Tunisia that were financed by al-Qaeda, said the agency report."