Learn more about the James Webb Telescope
Scientists across the UC system have played a major part in the James Webb Telescope project. Learn more about the role of UC Santa Cruz astronomers and project adviser UC Santa Cruz distinguished professor emeritus of astronomy and astrophysics Garth Illingworth here.
NASAs latest and snazziest mission, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched on Christmas Day, deployed its 21-foot-wide mirror a mere two weeks ago and reached its orbital destination earlier this week. With a flashy new telescope now nearly a reality, astronomers at the University of California, Berkeley, are chomping at the bit to start observing.
After months of anxiety about whether the $10 billion telescope 25 years in the making and the successor to the highly successful Hubble Space Telescope would even survive launch, let alone unfold from its chrysalis into a gold-blinged telescope, these astronomers feel confident enough to plan summertime observations of nearby galaxies and of some of our closest neighbors in the solar system.
Im so thankful that it launched and everything appears to be working. I think its going to be just incredible, said Ned Molter, a UC Berkeley doctoral student working with campus astronomer Imke de Pater, who leads one of 13 teams given the chance to make early observations with the JWST. I speak for many of us to say were over the moon about the launch.
What a beautiful Christmas present to have the James Webb Space Telescope launch on Christmas Day, echoed Dan Weisz, a UC Berkeley associate professor of astronomy who leads another team awarded observing time as part of the early release science program. The whole of 2022 is going to be a Webb extravaganza. The first part of the year well get the telescope up to speed and commissioned, and in early summer and fall well start observing and then publishing a slew of papers about the first results. It is going to be the year of Webb. Its fantastic.
After its launch exactly one month ago, on Dec. 25, the JWST began coasting through space to its final destination, a point referred to as L2: a special place in the solar system a Lagrange point where the gravitational pull on the telescope by Earth is exactly balanced by the gravitational pull of the sun. The JWST settled into orbit around L2 on Monday, Jan. 24, where it will remain forever, looking outward into the cosmos from the side of Earth that is opposite the sun.
As the telescope transited to that point 945,000 miles from Earth and four times farther from Earth than the moon scientists began aligning the primary mirror, which is a cluster of 18 smaller, gold-plated hexagonal mirrors, with the secondary mirror to get the sharpest images possible. Other scientists tested the many instruments onboard to make sure they work properly to record infrared light from objects in space.
Following the six-month-long commissioning phase, 13 teams chosen by NASA will take the new telescope for a spin, putting its instruments through their paces by targeting astronomical objects that will be the major focus of scientists during the telescopes planned 10 years of operation, and probably much longer.
To have two of the 13 led by people at Berkeley was pretty exceptional, said de Pater, a Distinguished Professor of the Graduate School and Distinguished Professor Emerita of astronomy and earth and planetary science who wrote her proposal in 2017 before her retirement from teaching last year.
Given the JWSTs primary mission to study dim, distant galaxies and faint exoplanets, the observations planned by de Pater and her team of about 50 astronomers may seem out of character: They will turn the telescope on one of the brightest objects in the sky, Jupiter.
They (NASA) wanted to get involvement from the astronomy community to see what is feasible, what Webb can do, and really pushing it to the limits, de Pater said. We came up with the idea to look at the Jovian system, because Jupiter is extremely bright, but next to Jupiter, you have these really faint rings and some really faint satellites. Moreover, we will look at faint spectral features on Io and Ganymede while they are eclipsed in Jupiters shadow, a quite challenging experiment since the two bodies will be very close to Jupiter and invisible at visible wavelengths. We thought it would make a really nice proposal to look at these large differences in brightness.
During her decades-long career, de Pater has used radio telescopes and optical and infrared telescopes, such as the pair at the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii and the Hubble Space Telescope, to study the atmospheres of our solar systems large planets, with particular attention to Jupiters large storm, the Great Red Spot; the volcanoes of Jupiters moon, Io; the icy surface of another Jovian moon, Ganymede; and Jupiters rings. She is particularly eager to take advantage of the JWSTs ability to detect mid-infrared light, which will give her access to different layers of Jupiters atmosphere, ones she has not been able to explore using earthbound telescopes.
We hope to find out more about the dynamics in the Great Red Spot and the aurora over the South Pole, and the chemistry and physics of the troposphere and into the stratosphere, she said.
Molter, who expects to graduate in August and remain with de Pater as a postdoctoral fellow to work with the JWST, plans to use the telescopes Aperture Masking Interferometer to study the individual volcanoes on Io. With new mid-infrared data, he hopes to accurately measure the temperatures of the volcanoes, which will allow comparison with volcanoes on Earth.
As a new graduate student back in 2017, he had hoped to write his thesis using JWST observations of Ios volcanoes, but as the launch date was pushed further and further out, he elected to study the atmospheres of Uranus and Neptune instead.
We sort of pivoted away from the Io science when Webb was being delayed so much, Molter laughed. I had to graduate in a certain amount of time, so I found other projects.
Weisz, an associate professor of astronomy, and his team will use their allotted time with the JWST to observe the Milky Way Galaxy and its nearby satellite galaxies. Weiszs main interest is galaxy formation, and in particular, the role of dark matter the still mysterious stuff that makes up 85% of the matter in the universe in galaxy formation.
He and his team of about 50 astronomers are focused on three different targets. One is M-92, one of the oldest globular clusters in the Milky Way and one of the most photographed by Hubble. The hope is that the JWST can detect the oldest and faintest stars and thus provide a more precise age for the cluster previewing what the JWST could do for all of the 100 or so globular clusters in the Milky Way.
Another target is an ultrafaint dwarf galaxy a satellite of the Milky Way 98,000 light years from Earth that has surprisingly little normal, visible matter, but instead appears to be mostly dark matter. The JWST should be able to detect the galaxys very faint stars and, with data from Hubble, map their motions in 3D, allowing astronomers to precisely weigh the dark matter and plot its distribution, constraining some of the theories of what dark matter may actually be.
Even farther away 3.26 million light years is a star-forming galaxy that Weisz hopes will test the resolution of the JWST, and perhaps improve the cosmic distance ladder used to measure the expansion of the universe. All three targets will require exploring the capabilities not only of the telescope, but of the detectors that produce the data.
Were building the software needed to basically take the JWST images and turn them into scientifically useful data products, like radiation fluxes, luminosities of individual stars, and galaxies and star clusters in our Milky Way and nearby universe, he said. And then, were releasing all the analysis software, the pipelines used to reduce it, the catalogs were making all of that stuff is just going to be made public as soon as were done, so the community can immediately take it and apply it to their use observing or use it to plan future proposals.
While Weisz expects the JWST to help advance his field of galaxy formation in the local universe and refine distance measurements in the cosmos, he predicts the greatest discoveries will be about the very early universe and the conditions on planets around other stars, which were NASAs primary goals for the JWST. Some key questions about the history of the universe and of life in the universe could be answered in the next few years all potentially worth the price of the JWST.
I think Webb has gotten a lot of negative attention because of its $10 billion price tag when it was only supposed to be a couple billion, Weisz said. But at the end of the day, you look at this and you say, Boy, if this is now going to last 10, 15 years, and its going to open windows onto planets and ancient stars in the early universe and tell us about how we got here, it really is just kind of in line with all the other amazing things that NASA has done. You look at it in terms of its discovery potential, and I really think its a great value.
Go here to read the rest:
Astronomers to put new space telescope through its paces - University of California
- Astronomy clubs want to help you enjoy the eclipse safely - NPR - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- You Can See a Rare, Bright Comet This Month. Will It Be Visible During the Solar Eclipse? - Smithsonian Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Solar Eclipse Path Map Shows States Where Sun Will Be Blocked Out - Newsweek - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Deep-space astronomy sensor peers into the heart of an atom - Space.com - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Physics and Astronomy Colloquium - Professor Paul Cassak; Department of Physics and Astronomy, West Virginia ... - The University of Iowa - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- United Nations prioritizes discussion of Dark and Quiet Skies - Astrobites - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- The burning acid behind ant stings was spotted around two stars - WAPT Jackson - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- The oddities known as Centaurs may sprout their tales after jumping to new orbits - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Pair of astronomy brothers to host eclipse viewing event - KAIT - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- How to watch the solar eclipse online - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- How does a black hole get to the center of a galaxy, and does the galaxy revolve around it? - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- The eclipse gives astronomy clubs an opportunity to shine - Voice Of Alexandria - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- AI 'for all': How access to new models is advancing academic research, from astronomy to education - Source - Microsoft - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- KU Department of Physics & Astronomy professor receives prestigious NSF award for black hole research - Salina Post - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Inspect impressive Mare Imbrium Astronomy Now - Astronomy Now Online - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- The Sky This Week from March 15 to 22: A conjunction of Venus and Saturn - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Pons-Brooks and M31 - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- The slightly weird mathematical coincidence behind an eclipse - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- APOD: 2024 March 17 NGC 7714: Starburst after Galaxy Collision - Astronomy Picture of the Day - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- How to Safely View the Eclipse National Radio Astronomy Observatory - National Radio Astronomy Observatory - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- NOIRLab releases jaw-dropping images, video of remnants from massive star explosion | Astronomy.com - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- JWST spots oceans' worth of water evaporating from a distant disk - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Radiation is vaporizing a young star's disk in the Orion Nebula - Astronomy Magazine - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- APOD: 2024 March 12 A Galaxy Shaped Rocket Exhaust Spiral - Astronomy Picture of the Day - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Best laptops for astronomers and astrophotographers in 2024 - Space.com - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- Why astronomers are worried about 2 major telescopes right now - Space.com - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- The People Behind Webb | Webb - WebbTelescope.org - March 16th, 2024 [March 16th, 2024]
- X-ray image of universe reveals almost 1 million high-energy objects: 'These are mind-blowing numbers' - Space.com - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Galaxy named 'Nube' is almost invisible, baffling astronomers Earth.com - Earth.com - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Giant Star Seen 150 Days Before it Exploded as a Supernova - Universe Today - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- UH astronomer named to prominent national astronomical society | University of Hawaii System News - University of Hawaii - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- The Art of SeeingStates of Astronomy - Announcements - E-Flux - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Pluto isn't really a planet, but it might be Arizona's official state planet - Arizona Mirror - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Did You Know? Stars Near and Far Reveal Their Secrets to CSUN Scientists - California State University, Northridge - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Top 10 space stories of 2023 - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- How we found the Milky Way's bar: This Week in Astronomy with Dave Eicher - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- The best telescope to use with a smartphone - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- JWST releases 19 awe-inspiring images of spiral galaxies - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Learning Shines Brightly at SuperKnova National Radio Astronomy Observatory - National Radio Astronomy Observatory - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- The Crafoord Prize 2024 goes to three ERC grantees for their pioneering contributions to astronomy and mathematics ... - European Research Council - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- The Moon's south pole is likely not the safest place for manned missions - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- The moon could be perfect for cutting-edge telescopes but not if we don't protect it - Space.com - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- February Astronomy: Spot the Milky Way and the Zodiacal Light While the Skies Are Darkest - Coachella Valley Independent - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- You can stream an asteroid whizzing past Earth this weekend - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Chinese Astronomy at the Royal Observatory | Royal Observatory | Things to do in London - Time Out London - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Astronomers in Chile to scour universe with car-sized mega camera - - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Dark Matter Might Help Explain How Supermassive Black Holes Can Merge - Universe Today - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- How far away is the sun? They went on a perilous journey to find out. - National Geographic - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- Scientists spotted an asteroid hours before it burned up over Germany - Astronomy Magazine - February 1st, 2024 [February 1st, 2024]
- XRISM Unveils the Invisible: A New Era in X-Ray Astronomy - SciTechDaily - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- New Astronomy Finding Uncovers the Mystery of Star Formation at the Edge of Galaxies - SBU News - Stony Brook News - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- The Future Of Astronomy Lies In Artificial Intelligence - Forbes - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- The 'Super Bowl of Astronomy' begins next week in New Orleans - Space.com - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Scientific American proposes policing the language of astronomy to make it beautiful and elegant, as well as ... - Why Evolution Is True - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- 'Blob-like' home of farthest-known fast radio burst is collection of seven galaxies - Northwestern Now - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Astronomers revealed mysterious star formation by hearts of molecular clouds - Tech Explorist - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Spectroscopic sizing of interstellar icy grains with JWST - Nature.com - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Kip Thorne and the mind-bending science of Interstellar | Astronomy.com - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Here There Be DRAGNs National Radio Astronomy Observatory - National Radio Astronomy Observatory - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Unistellar's latest smart telescopes take the hassle out of backyard astronomy - Engadget - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- 20 of the best places to view the 2024 total solar eclipse - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Northern Arizona astronomy: How old is our third generation sun? - Grand Canyon News - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Evidence builds that Kamo'oalewa is a chunk of the Moon accompanying Earth - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- The Sky This Week from January 5 to 12: Visitors to the Scorpion - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- AAS 243 NRAO Press Announcement - National Radio Astronomy Observatory - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Your guide to the sky in 2024 - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- The best binoculars for astronomy in 2024 - Popular Science - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Are we visible to alien astronomers? This study makes the case - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Mystery of Star Formation Revealed by Hearts of Molecular Clouds - National Radio Astronomy Observatory - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Astronomers Solve the Mystery of Giant Radio Circles - AZoQuantum - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Early Evolution of Planetary Disk Structures Seen for the First Time - National Radio Astronomy Observatory - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- XRISM's Revolutionary Insights into X-Ray Astronomy - AZoQuantum - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Vatican's chief astronomer talks about stars, beauty, truth - Aleteia - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Explore the cosmos in EAC Payson Campus astronomy workshops - Payson Roundup - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Neptune is more of a greenish blue than is commonly depicted - NPR - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- First Yale Gravitational Wave Symposium sparks research innovation | Department of Physics - Yale University - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- The best expensive telescopes for those ready to splurge - Astronomy Magazine - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Dinosaurs and a touch of astronomy | Education | paysonroundup.com - Payson Roundup - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Astronomical Illusions: New Images Reveal What Neptune and Uranus Really Look Like - SciTechDaily - January 10th, 2024 [January 10th, 2024]
- Book Review: Things That Go Bump in the Universe, by C. Rene James - The New York Times - December 16th, 2023 [December 16th, 2023]