JWST

Recently, Kevin Luhman of Pennsylvania State University chose to study the star cluster IC 348, which is about 1,000 light years away in the Perseus star-forming region. Using James Webb's NIRCAM (Near-Infrared Camera), his team found a tiny free-floating brown dwarf only three to four times the mass of Jupiter.To locate these brown dwarfs, Luhman and his colleague Catarina Alves de Oliveira chose to study the star cluster IC 348. The cluster is very young, only about 5 million years old. Since it's very young, any brown dwarfs would be bright in infrared light.They found that these weighed three to eight Jupiter masses, with surface temperatures ranging between 1,500 to 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Out of all these, computer models suggest the smallest one could weight between three...

NASA's James Webb Telescope is looking into the great beyond, providing us with great views of space. Today, NASA shared a photo the telescope has taken of Cassiopeia A.Since NASA's NIRCam is used for taking near-infrared photos, we can assume that many features of this wouldn't be visible to the human eye. To get the photo above, image processors and scientists had to translate wavelengths of light to visible colors.The most notable features of the image are clumps in bright orange and light pink. These make up the inner shell of the supernova remnant. This includes the tiniest knots of gas, comprised of sulfur, oxygen, argon, and neon from the star itself. Inside this gas is a mixture of dust and molecules, which could become components of new stars and planetary systems someday....

A team of international researchers has utilized NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to determine the level of heat energy emitted by the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c. The findings suggest that, if it exists, the planet's atmosphere is extremely thin.TRAPPIST-1 c, with a dayside temperature of approximately 380 kelvins (around 225 degrees Fahrenheit), is now recognized as the coolest rocky exoplanet ever characterized based on thermal emission. The precision required for these measurements underscores the significance of Webb's capabilities in studying rocky exoplanets similar in size and temperature to those within our own solar system.This outcome represents another advancement in determining whether planets orbiting small red dwarfs like TRAPPIST-1—the most common type of star in ...

The quest to understand the origins of the first stars and galaxies has always been at the forefront of astronomical inquiries. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has recently made significant strides in shedding light on this profound question. One of the telescope's most extensive research initiatives during its inaugural year of scientific operations is the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, affectionately known as JADES. This program is dedicated to studying and characterizing faint, distant galaxies and will allocate around 32 days of precious telescope time to achieve its objectives. Although the data is still being collected, JADES has already made noteworthy discoveries, unearthing hundreds of galaxies that existed when the universe was younger than 600 million years. Furtherm...

Today, NASA said the James Webb Space Telescope has observed a distant planet outside our solar system. The planet is being called GJ 1214 b, seems to be a highly reflective world with a steamy atmosphere.NASA says the planet is too hot to harbor liquid-water oceans, but that doesn't stop the possibility of water in vaporized form in the atmosphere.According to Eliza Kempton, a researcher at the University of Maryland, “The planet is totally blanketed by some sort of haze or cloud layer. The atmosphere just remained totally hidden from us until this observation.”To get past this layer, the research team tracked GJ 1214 B through it's entire orbit around the star. They found that the planet had different temperatures based on it's orbit - they ranged from 535 to 326 degrees ...

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which was launched into space in 2021, has found seven galaxies which make up a massive cluster in it's early stages of evolution.Researchers believe the galaxies formed around 650 million years after the big bang, which is also called the "Redshift 7.9". According to the data they collected, this cluster will most likely grow in size. It's expected to be resemble the Coma Cluster, which is one of the largest galaxies in the universe.“This is a very special, unique site of accelerated galaxy evolution, and Webb gave us the unprecedented ability to measure the velocities of these seven galaxies and confidently confirm that they are bound together in a protocluster,” Takahiro Morrishita, WebbTelescope.orgThe team also determined the galax...