Space Quote: Has the JWST Changed Astronomy Forever?

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): On June 25, 2023, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope conducted its first near-infrared observations of Saturn using its Near-Infrared Camera. (NASA, ESA, CSA, Matthew Tiscareno (SETI Institute), Matthew Hedman (University of Idaho), Maryame El Moutamid (Cornell University), Mark Showalter (SETI Institute), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Heidi Hammel (AURA))

“Physicists and astronomers are starting to get the sense that something may be really wrong. It’s not just that some of us believe we might have to rethink the standard model of cosmology; we might also have to change the way we think about some of the most basic features of our universe — a conceptual revolution that would have implications far beyond the world of science.”

-Statement by guess essayists Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser in a New York Times article about the James Webb Space Telescope titled “The Story of Our Universe May Be Starting to Unravel.” Dr. Frank is an astrophysicist at the University of Rochester. Dr. Gleiser is a theoretical physicist at Dartmouth College.

Video: More on the Importance of Exomoons

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Artist’s rendering of an exomoon. (Cool Worlds Lab)

If you watched my earlier post on Cool Worlds Lab’s missed opportunity on an exomoon proposal with the James Webb Space Telescope, then you will enjoy this updated video where Assistant Professor of Astronomy David Kipping provides five reasons that the study of exomoons is so important.

I do not want to give too much away, but one of the reasons is that the search for life on exoplanets needs to consider not only the chemical composition of the exoplanet, but the orbiting exmoon as well. If we assume everything we are seeing in the light from the observed exoplanet comes from only the exoplanet, we may experience a number of false positives because the life-affirming chemicals may not be combined in one object but instead come from two dead objects that only appear as one.

This makes sense, but it also throws a wrench into things. If we are struggling to build telescopes large enough to truly understand an exoplanet’s composition, we are now much farther away from a useful telescope because of the impact of exomoons. Of course, this is not the fault of the exomoons, but rather a reality that must be added to the equation.

Check out the video as Dr. Kipping makes his argument. It is pretty convincing.

The Moon Has One More Crater

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Contrast between two views of the lunar surface from June 27, 2020, and Aug. 24, 2023, which is before and after the crash of Russia’s Luna-25 spacecraft. (NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Arizona State University)

If President Putin wanted to leave a mark, he has done so on the Moon. NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) has apparently located the spot where the Luna-25 spacecraft crashed, as shown in the before and after shot above.

Given that craters can last for billions of years on the Moon’s surface, we can rest assured that the Russians have made an indelible mark on a distant land.

Russia, let’s call it a win and recall those troops from Ukraine.

By the way, maybe we should call the new crater Putin’s Sunset.

Pic of the Week: Hurricane Idalia Over Florida

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Image (Credit): Hurricane Idalia as it travels over Florida. (NASA)

The image above showing Idalia hitting Florida was captured from the International Space Station on August 30, 2023.

Here is the full explanation about the image from the site:

An astronaut on the International Space Station used a handheld camera to capture the second photo (below) at 10:44 a.m. Eastern Time (14:44 Universal Time) on August 30, several hours after landfall. Idalia had weakened to a category 1 storm by this time with sustained winds of 150 kilometers (90 miles) per hour. It continued to weaken as it moved northeast over Georgia, South Carolina, and then offshore over the Atlantic Ocean on August 31.

You can see this image and others at NASA’s Earth Observatory site.

What Will the JWST Peer At Next?

Posted on by onespaceman2000

If you are wondering where the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will be looking in the future, some of that is known and some has yet to be determined. The approved targets of the space telescope can be found at the Programmatic Categories of JWST Science Observations site.

The site breaks the approved targets into these six categories:

  • General Observer (GO) Programs: Observations and archival research proposed by the community and selected by peer review.
  • Guaranteed Time Observations (GTO) Programs: Observations defined by members of the instrument and telescope science teams, as well as a number of interdisciplinary scientists.
  • Director’s Discretionary Time (DDT): Time-critical observations that cannot be scheduled for a regular proposal cycle.
  • Director’s Discretionary Early Release Science (DD-ERS) Programs: Observations to be executed within the first five months of science operations and immediately released to the community.
  • Calibration Programs: Observations used to calibrate the science instruments in support of all the other science programs.
  • First Image Observations: The first observations following commissioning to demonstrate the observatory’s capabilities.

The GO Programs have been decided through Cycle 2. Earlier this month, the Space Telescope Science Institute put out a call for Cycle 3 Call for Proposals for the GO Programs. Proposals are due by October 25, 2023 and selected proposals will be announced in February 2024.

Take a look at the existing list and you will find plenty of interesting areas of study. For instance, under the Cycle 3 GTO Programs you have areas such as:

  • Titan Surface and Atmosphere;
  • Exoplanet search around Altair; and
  • Search for Varuna’s Satellite.