Daily Archives: February 6, 2021

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field (in its eXtreme version) is the deepest view of the universe yet obtained and will be, until JADES takes over. It stretches approximately 13 billion light-years and includes approximately 10,000 galaxies. It took 11.3 days for the Hubble Space Telescope to collect these ancient photons. Try downloading the largest version and zoom in on different sections. Were seeing these galaxies as they were billions of years ago. How might they look today? Image via NASA/ ESA/ S. Beckwith (STSci)/ HUDF team.

Astronomers announced a new deeper-than-ever sky survey this month (January 15, 2021), to be conducted with the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble telescopes successor, scheduled for launch in October of this year. The new survey is abbreviated JADES, which is short for James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey. The survey will be like the Hubble Deep Fields, but deeper still. Its main goal is to see far away in space and thus far back into the very young universe and image it just at the end of the so-called Cosmic Dark Ages, that is, at the time when gas in the universe went from being opaque to transparent. This is also the time when the very first stars were forming very large, massive and bright stars in a veritable firestorm of star birth when the young universe was less than 5% of its current age.

The 2021 lunar calendars are here. Order yours before theyre gone!

The Webb telescope will be located near the second Lagrange point a relatively stable region of space, gravitationally speaking, known as L2 some 930,000 miles (1.5 million km) from Earth. To conduct the new survey, the Webb telescope will be staring at a small point of space for nearly 800 hours (approximately 33 days) to be able to see fainter objects than those ever seen before and thus to find the first generation of galaxies. Astronomers want to know, among other things, how fast did these galaxies form, and how fast did their stars form? They also want to look for the very first supermassive black holes, which are thought to lie at the hearts of nearly all large galaxies, including our Milky Way.

The long-anticipated launch of the James Webb Space Telescope has been postponed a number of times for a variety of reasons, most recently because of effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. It is the formal successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, but is equipped with instrumentation able to image further into the infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum than Hubble could.

This capability also makes it a worthy successor to the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope which recently went into retirement.

What makes the infrared part of the spectrum so important for surveys like JADES? If you look really deep, you will also look back in time, and the farther back in time you look, the more redshifted the galaxies are (the farther away they are, the faster they move away from us, and the more their light has been shifted towards the red part of the spectrum). This means that the light we want to observe, originally in the optical (visible) part of the electromagnetic spectrum, might not even show much in the optical part anymore. Instead, its been shifted to longer wavelengths, into the infrared regime.

In other words, the use of infrared cameras is necessary to be able to see the light from the first generation of galaxies. Daniel Eisenstein, a professor of astronomy at Harvard University, said:

Galaxies, we think, begin building up in the first billion years after the Big Bang, and sort of reach adolescence at 1 to 2 billion years. Were trying to investigate those early periods. We must do this with an infrared-optimized telescope because the expansion of the universe causes light to increase in wavelength as it traverses the vast distance to reach us. So even though the stars are emitting light primarily in optical and ultraviolet wavelengths, that light is shifted quite relentlessly out into the infrared. Only Webb can get to the depth and sensitivity thats needed to study these early galaxies.

In fact, the James Webb Space Telescope was built specifically for this purpose. Up to now, infrared images are much less resolved less clear than optical images, because of their longer wavelength. With its much larger collecting area, the Webb will be able to image, in infrared, at the same resolution detail that Hubble could obtain in the optical part of the spectrum.

Get ready for a whole new set of mind-blowing images of the universe, this time in the infrared, from Webb!

After having successfully deployed its solar panels precisely as its supposed to do once its in space the Webb telescope is shown here ready for the final tests on December 17, 2020, at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center. Then it will be packed up and transported to French Guyana, to be launched on October 31, 2021, via an Ariane V rocket. Image via NASA/ Chris Gunn.

The use of deep field surveys is a young science, for two reasons. First, astronomers didnt have the right instrumentation before Hubble to do them. Second, its also because no one initially knew the result of staring into a piece of empty space for a long time. Such a long stare into the unknown would require valuable observation time, and if this long observation didnt produce any results, it would be considered a waste.

But in 1995, Robert Williams, then the director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSci), which administrates the Hubble telescope, decided to use his directors discretionary time to point the Hubble toward a very small and absolutely empty-looking part of the sky in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major the Great Bear. There were no stars visible from our Milky Way (or extremely few), no nearby galaxies visible in the field, and no visible gas clouds. Hubble collected photons for 10 consecutive days, and the result, the Hubble Deep Field, was a success and a paradigm changer: A patch of sky about as small as the eye of George Washington on an American quarter (25-cent coin) held out at arms length, showed a 10 billion-light-years-long tunnel back in time with a plethora of galaxies around 3,000 of them at different evolutionary stages along the way. The field of observational cosmology was born.

This was done again in 1998 with the Hubble telescope pointed to the southern sky (Hubble Deep Field South), and the result was the same. Thus we learned that the universe is uniform over large scales.

Next was the installation of a new, powerful camera on Hubble (the Advanced Camera for Surveys) in 2002. The incredible Hubble Ultra Deep Field was acquired in 2004, in a similarly small patch of sky near the constellation Orion, about 1/10 of a full moon diameter (2.4 x 3.4 arc minutes, in contrast to the original Hubble Deep Fields north and south, which were 2.6 x 2.6 arc minutes). And so our reach was extended even deeper into space, and even further back in time, showing light from 10 thousand galaxies along a 13-billion-light-years-long tunnel of space. If youll remember that the universe is about 13.77 billion years old, youll see this is getting us really close to the beginning!

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field was the most sensitive astronomical image ever made at wavelengths of visible (optical) light until 2012, when an even more refined version was released, called the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field, which reached even farther: 13.2 billion years back in time.

The JADES survey will be observed in two batches, one on the northern sky and one on the southern in two famous fields called GOODS North and South (abbreviated from Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey).

Marcia Rieke, a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona who co-leads the JADES Team with Pierre Ferruit of the European Space Agency (ESA), explained:

We chose these fields because they have such a great wealth of supporting information. Theyve been studied at many other wavelengths, so they were the logical ones to do.

View larger. | Look closely. Every single speck of light in this image is a distant galaxy (except for the very few ones with spikes which are foreground stars). This telescopic field of view is part of the GOODS South field. Its one of the directions in space thatll be observed in JADES, a new survey that aims to study the very first galaxies to appear in the infancy of the universe. Image via NASA/ Hubble Space Telescope/ James Webb Space Telescope site.

The GOODS fields have been observed with several of the most famous telescopes, covering a great wavelength range from infrared through optical to X-ray. They are not fully as deep (the observations dont reach as far back) as the Ultra Deep Field, but cover a larger area of the sky (4-5 times larger) and are the most data-rich areas of the sky in terms of depth combined with wavelength coverage. By the way, the first deep field, HDF-N, is located in the GOODS north image, and the Ultra deep field/eXtreme (dont you love these names?) is located in the GOODS south field.

There are a large number of ambitious science goals for the JADES program pertaining to the composition of the first galaxies, including the first generation of supermassive black holes. How these came about at such an early time is a mystery. As well, the transition of gas from neutral and opaque to transparent and ionized, something astronomers call the epoch of reionization, is not well understood. JADES team member Andrew Bunker, professor of astrophysics at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom, who is also part of the ESA team behind the Webb telescope, said:

This transition is a fundamental phase change in the nature of the universe. We want to understand what caused it. It could be that its the light from very early galaxies and the first burst of star formation It is kind of one of the Holy Grails, to find the so-called Population III stars that formed from the hydrogen and helium of the Big Bang.

People have been trying to do this for many decades and results have been inconclusive so far.

But, hopefully, not for much longer!

Bottom line: JADES is an ambitious new deep sky survey to be observed with the James Webb Space Telescope, once launched. It will reach further back in time and space than any survey before, to study the very first generation of galaxies after the universe transitioned from opaque to transparent.

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JADES will go deeper than the Hubble Deep Fields - EarthSky

It was a tough year here on Earth, but 2020 was a bright spot for space exploration. SpaceX sent its futuristic Starship to new heights, three countries launched Mars missions, and robots grabbed debris from the moon and an asteroid.

Next year promises more, including a planned launch of the Hubble Space Telescopes successor.

Perhaps its no surprise then that space themes are having a moment in home decor. When so many of us Earthlings are stuck at home because of the pandemic, space imagery can add a sense of adventure or whimsy to rooms, walls and ceilings.

Ive done outer space, and starry skies, says New York interior designer Patrice Hoban. My clients love using stars as a backdrop in nurseries. Ive also worked with glow-paint to add an extra pop to kids rooms and home theaters.

She sticks tiny glow-in-the-dark stars to the ceiling; the light can last for hours. Its the closest thing Ive found to being in a planetarium, she says.

Rachel Magana, senior visual designer at the sustainable furniture-rental company Fernish, picked up some cosmological decorating ideas from a colleagues recent nursery project.

Base your color palette around deep blue tones, then splash in bits of color like yellow, white or red, she says.

Or create your own galaxy wall, she says. Paint a blue wall, then use some watered-down white paint to splatter it with fine droplets. You may just create some new constellations.

She suggests adding fun, space-agey lamps, and vintage NASA posters.

Outer space has inspired designers for decades. In the 1960s, the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, along with the development of space age-y, synthetic materials, led to a surge in futuristic furniture like molded plastic chairs and Sputnik-shaped lighting.

These days, you can download artwork directly from NASA: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/, or find it at retailers like Red Bubble, Etsy and Zazzle.

Magana also suggests making a letter board with a space-themed quote like Neil Armstrongs famous One small step for man phrase.

Much of the astronomy-themed art in the marketplace would be striking in any room. There are lunar graphics on canvas at Target. Tempapers got constellation wallpapers, but if you cant do wallpaper, consider Kenna Sato Designs constellation decals for walls or ceilings.

Galaxy Lamps has a sphere that looks like a planetoid. Charge it up with the included USB and cycle through 16 colors with three lighting modes. Theres a moon version, too. And at Beautiful Halo, find a collection of rocket-ship ceiling fixtures.

German designer Jan Kath has created a rug collection called Spacecrafted inspired by imagery of gas clouds and asteroid nebulae from the Hubble telescope.

Studio Greytak, in Missoula, Montana, has designed a Jupiter lamp out of the mineral aragonite, depicting the whirling, turbulent gases of the planet. And theres the Impact table, where a chunk of desert rose crystals is embedded with cast glass, as though a piece of asteroid had plunged into a pool.

Zodiac wall decals and a Milky Way throw rug can be found at Project Nursery. There are hanging mobiles of the planets and of stars and clouds, at both Crate & Kids and Pottery Barn Kids.

A glow-in-the-dark duvet cover printed with the solar system is also at PBK, but if youre ready to really head to the stars, check out Snurk Livings duvet set. The studio, owned by Dutch designers Peggy van Neer and Erik van Loo, has designed the set photoprinted with a life-size astronaut suit.

Creating a night sky on the ceiling of a home theater seems to be popular; Houzz has hundreds of examples for inspiration.

Maydan Architects in Palo Alto, California, designed one for a recent project.

Our clients grandfather was the owner of multiple movie theaters, says Mary Maydan. One of them had a retractable ceiling that enabled guests to experience the starry sky at night. When our client decided to build their home theater, this installation was actually fulfilling a lifelong dream.

The ceiling isnt retractable, but has an eight-paneled fixture depicting the Milky Way and a shooting star.

It provides very soft light and was intended to be kept on during the screening of the movie and create a magical experience, says Maydan.

View original post here:
Space-themed decor brings the heavens indoors | MAD Life | heraldbulletin.com - The Herald Bulletin

A few short years after NASA got money for the successor to the Hubble telescope, they told Congress that 11 years would not be enough time to build it. They told the public they couldn't put a telescope into space by 2002, even though that was more time than it took to start from nothing and have living breathing humans walk on the moon.

The James Webb Space Telescope is named after the NASA manager who oversaw that moon landing. Were he alive today he'd probably wish they had chosen Gene Kranz for the name instead. He'd certainly be skeptical that modern NASA can do any Big Science. Cute robots on Mars, sure, but not big stuff like this.

It's not new for NASA claims to be the subject of skepticism. The U.S Government Accountability Office (G.A.O.) placed NASA on its High Risk list in 1990, and they never left it.

The reason is as old as government funding; underselling costs while overselling short schedules.

NASA pioneered space travel and right after that they pioneered creating projects that were Too Big To Fail. Meaning government will have dumped so much money we have to lose more to get anything at all. Corporate CEOs know you don't 'throw good money after bad' but most politicians have never worked for companies, and they aren't risking their jobs losing fortunes.

Once upon a time, there was skepticism about this stuff, but now there is only critical thinking about programs begun by the other side. Democrats refuse to not lose their minds about solar and wind mirages, but the Clinton administration happily canceled the Superconducting Supercollider and the Strategic Defense Initiative because they were started by Reagan. President Obama did the same thing to George W. Bush's Constellation program. Yet JWST, started during the Clinton years, somehow survived despite being a boondoggle than all three combined.

The question journalists should be asking is, will it work at all? Hubble didn't work at first, but it was close enough to be easily fixable. NASA will be lucky if this even goes up this year, after 25 years of hearing about it, but if something goes wrong it could take 40 years to get a team there to fix it. And if Republican presidents of the future do what the last two Democracts did and cancel programs just because their predecessors' names are on them, humans will never go into real space again.

I get the benefit if it does work, but go ahead and put me in your Twitter mentions claiming I hate science for being skeptical of government failures stretching back decades, but with all of the missteps and an internal confidence level that never rose above 50 percent it would work, it is time for the science community to shuck off politics and stop embracing centralized authority as the best way to do things. It isn't. It's a challenge to find anything centralized government has done well. But go ahead and try in a comment and I will note how much money it has cost and how a smarter approach would have been better.

See original here:
19 Years Late And 800% Over Budget, Will The James Webb Space Telescope Finally Launch? - Science 2.0

Kim Cook Associated Press

Rachel Magana, senior visual designer at the sustainable furniture-rental company Fernish, says she picked up some cosmological decorating ideas from a colleagues recent nursery project. Base your color palette around deep blue tones, then splash in bits of color like yellow, white or red.

Rachel Magana, senior visual designer at the sustainable furniture-rental company Fernish, says she picked up some cosmological decorating ideas from a colleagues recent nursery project. Base your color

Photo: Dustin Walker Photography | Fernish (via AP)

Rachel Magana, senior visual designer at the sustainable furniture-rental company Fernish, says she picked up some cosmological decorating ideas from a colleagues recent nursery project. Base your color palette around deep blue tones, then splash in bits of color like yellow, white or red.

Rachel Magana, senior visual designer at the sustainable furniture-rental company Fernish, says she picked up some cosmological decorating ideas from a colleagues recent nursery project. Base your color

Space-themed decor brings heavens indoors

It was a tough year here on Earth, but 2020 was a bright spot for space exploration. SpaceX sent its futuristic Starship to new heights, three countries launched Mars missions, and robots grabbed debris from the moon and an asteroid.

Next year promises more, including a planned launch of the Hubble Space Telescopes successor.

Perhaps its no surprise then that space themes are having a moment in home decor. When so many of us Earthlings are stuck at home because of the pandemic, space imagery can add a sense of adventure or whimsy to rooms, walls and ceilings.

Ive done outer space, and starry skies, says New York interior designer Patrice Hoban. My clients love using stars as a backdrop in nurseries. Ive also worked with glow-paint to add an extra pop to kids rooms and home theaters.

She sticks tiny glow-in-the-dark stars to the ceiling; the light can last for hours. Its the closest thing Ive found to being in a planetarium, she says.

Rachel Magana, senior visual designer at the sustainable furniture-rental company Fernish, picked up some cosmological decorating ideas from a colleagues recent nursery project.

Base your color palette around deep blue tones, then splash in bits of color like yellow, white or red, she says.

Or create your own galaxy wall, she says. Paint a blue wall, then use some watered-down white paint to splatter it with fine droplets. You may just create some new constellations.

She suggests adding fun, space-agey lamps, and vintage NASA posters.

Outer space has inspired designers for decades. In the 1960s, the space race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, along with the development of space age-y, synthetic materials, led to a surge in futuristic furniture like molded plastic chairs and Sputnik-shaped lighting.

These days, you can download artwork directly from NASA at solarsystem.nasa.gov, or find it at retailers like Red Bubble, Etsy and Zazzle.

Magana also suggests making a letter board with a space-themed quote like Neil Armstrongs famous One small step for man phrase.

Much of the astronomy-themed art in the marketplace would be striking in any room. There are lunar graphics on canvas at Target. Tempapers got constellation wallpapers, but if you cant do wallpaper, consider Kenna Sato Designs constellation decals for walls or ceilings.

Galaxy Lamps has a sphere that looks like a planetoid. Charge it up with the included USB and cycle through 16 colors with three lighting modes. Theres a moon version, too. And at Beautiful Halo, find a collection of rocket-ship ceiling fixtures.

German designer Jan Kath has created a rug collection called Spacecrafted inspired by imagery of gas clouds and asteroid nebulae from the Hubble telescope.

Studio Greytak, in Missoula, Montana, has designed a Jupiter lamp out of the mineral aragonite, depicting the whirling, turbulent gases of the planet. And theres the Impact table, where a chunk of desert rose crystals is embedded with cast glass, as though a piece of asteroid had plunged into a pool.

Zodiac wall decals and a Milky Way throw rug can be found at Project Nursery. There are hanging mobiles of the planets and of stars and clouds, at both Crate & Kids and Pottery Barn Kids.

A glow-in-the-dark duvet cover printed with the solar system is also at PBK, but if youre ready to really head to the stars, check out Snurk Livings duvet set. The studio, owned by Dutch designers Peggy van Neer and Erik van Loo, has designed the set photoprinted with a life-size astronaut suit.

Creating a night sky on the ceiling of a home theater seems to be popular; Houzz has hundreds of examples for inspiration.

Maydan Architects in Palo Alto, California, designed one for a recent project.

Our clients grandfather was the owner of multiple movie theaters, says Mary Maydan. One of them had a retractable ceiling that enabled guests to experience the starry sky at night. When our client decided to build their home theater, this installation was actually fulfilling a lifelong dream.

The ceiling isnt retractable, but has an eight-paneled fixture depicting the Milky Way and a shooting star.

It provides very soft light and was intended to be kept on during the screening of the movie and create a magical experience, says Maydan.

See original here:
Space-themed decor brings heavens indoors - Jacksonville Journal-Courier