RenoVous

  The James Webb Telescope observed 19 nearby spiral galaxies in near- and mid-infrared light. Webb's NIRCam (Near-infrared) captured millions of stars in these images, which sparkle in blue tones.  The MIRI (mid-infrared instrument) highlights the glowing dust, and the stars that aren't fully formed, still encased in gas, as the red dots. This is part of an ongoing project with the PHANGS program (Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS).  The team also has data from Hubble, the Very Large Telescope's Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, which includes observations in ultraviolet, visible, and radio light. Here we have NGC 628 split diagonally with Webb imagery at top left and Hubble at bottom right. This galaxy is 32 million lightyears away, in the constellation Pisces. Article

  Since I'll be off on Friday, I wanted to touch base on this Science today. James Webb has captured new images of Jupiter. We can see Northern and Southern auroras, and around the middle, a slight glimpse of the rings. Further out, we can see the moon, Amalthea. "The numerous bright white spots and streaks are likely very high-altitude cloud tops of condensed convective storms," said Heidi Hammel, Webb interdisciplinary scientist. The Great Red Spot also appears white as it is reflecting sunlight. Of course, this image is produced from multiple images and various filters.  Jupiter is even more difficult to map because of how fast it rotates. NASA

 Launch day has been postponed (again) due to adverse weather in Kourou, French Guiana. It is now set for December 25, but since I won't be here posting that day, I wanted to set a spot for us. James Webb is the successor to Hubble, with missions to find the first galaxies formed in the universe and to peer through dusty clouds to see stars forming planetary systems. Ultraviolet and visible light emitted by the very first luminous objects has been stretched, or "redshifted" by the continual expansion of the universe and arrives today as infrared light.  Webb is designed to see this light with unprecedented resolution and sensitivity. Using a technique called transmission spectroscopy, Webb will examine starlight filtered through planetary atmospheres to learn about their chemical compositions.  It will observe exoplanets to determine if and where signatures of habitability may be present. After launch, Webb will travel about a million miles from Earth and undergo six mont...

The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope has produced the highest resolution image of the sun's surface. The cell-like structures, which contain boiling plasma and are each about the size of Texas, are the signature of violent motions that transport heat from the inside of the sun to the surface.  Hot solar material rises in the bright centers, cools off, and then sinks below the surface in dark lanes in a process known as convection. In the dark lanes, we can also see the tiny bright markers of magnetic fields.  These spots might be why the corona (outer layers of the solar atmosphere) is more than a million degrees. The motions of the plasma twist and tangle the magnetic fields which leads to solar storms.  The more we can learn about this space weather, the more prepared we can be for potentially harmful solar activity. On the summit of Haleakala in Maui, Hawaii. The National Science Foundation here will be studying the sun and space weather ...