- 3626 - JAMES WEBB - first light agenda? NASA released the first official images from Webb on July 12, 2022. James Webb will soon turn its gaze on many objects in our own solar system. Although the telescope was built to observe distant galaxies, it will also allow scientists to observe our solar system in completely new ways.
--------------------- 3626 - JAMES WEBB - first light agenda?
- Webb was meant to focus on the distant universe. Many of those plans rely on instruments called “spectrographs“. These instruments capture spectra which are representations of the different wavelengths of light emitted and absorbed by anything from a star to a planet's atmosphere to interstellar dust.
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- Because different substances emit and absorb light in distinctive ways, scientists have used spectrographs to find out what much of the universe is made of. Every element displaces a different spectrum because it has a different number electrons occupying orbits around the center protons.
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- Webb is designed to be an incredibly powerful tool that will see out to the edge of the cosmos, the most distant galaxies, maybe even the first stars that formed.
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- Webb is an infrared telescope, meaning its spectrographs detect wavelengths of light longer than the human eye can see, revealing details about what makes up the cosmos that observatories focusing on visible and ultraviolet spectra, including the Hubble Space Telescope, cannot.
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- Infrared capability is vital for gleaning details about faraway stars, but it also enables the observatory to investigate details of our solar system that have long eluded scientists.
There is so much molecular chemistry that manifests itself in the infrared part of the spectrum.
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- Its unprecedented sensitivity, enable Webb to observe faint phenomena both near and far. And where telescopes on Earth struggle to examine objects close to something extremely bright, like Jupiter's moons, Webb's perch is in deep space.
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- From these observations, scientists hope to better understand Jupiter's weather, temperature, composition and auroral activity, those lights painted across the sky by charged particles from the sun hitting a planet's atmosphere. The data will also help scientists to study Jupiter's rings, how they might have formed, and where they might have come from.
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- Researchers will also try to map out plumes of vapor rising from two of Jupiter’s moons, volcano-covered Io and icy Ganymede. On Io, these come from its many volcanoes, but some evidence from Hubble suggests that another one of Jupiter’s icy moons, Europa, could spit out plumes of water vapor.
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- Europa isn't alone: NASA's Saturn explorer Cassini gathered clearer data suggesting plumes of water vapor and tiny grains of ice rising from the surface of that planet's Enceladus. Spectra of the plumes on Europa and Enceladus in hopes of sniffing out what they are made of and whether they reveal any signs of life hiding in the ice-covered ocean.
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- Observation of Uranus will start in August, while Neptune will have to wait until next June.
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- Analyzing data gathered by the “Mid-Infrared Instrument” (MIRI) from the planets, aims to learn more about their compositions, atmospheres, temperatures, and weather. MIRI measures longer wavelengths of light than any other instrument on Webb, helping to reveal data about the planets that was previously hidden.
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- In April, a study revealed a surprising fact about Neptune. It is cooling down, and no one knows why. Scientists expected the planet to heat up during its astronomical summer, but two decades of data revealed strange, uneven cooling. Scientists hope to use Webb to find an explanation for the unexpected colder temperatures.
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- The exquisite sensitivity of the space telescope's mid-infrared instrument, MIRI, will provide unprecedented new maps of the chemistry and temperatures in Neptune's atmosphere.
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- Apart from Earth, Mars is probably the most-studied planet in our solar system, with three active rovers and one lander currently exploring the planet. Even objects like the planet Mars that we have explored with rovers and orbiters, we can use James Webb Space Telescope to get holistic global views of the chemistry happening on the surface or in the atmosphere.
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- Webb will study the weather on Mars at a global scale. In 2018, “Opportunity rover” succumbed to a planet-wide dust storm that left the spacecraft unable to gather solar power. At the time, orbiters gathered information on the storm, but none could see the entire planet at once. If Webb can watch such a dust storm on Mars, its data might help scientists better understand these storms and help future spacecraft endure them.
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- Using Webb's spectrographs to analyze Mars and its atmosphere, scientists hope to address some of our most crucial questions about the planet. Why did the planet's lakes and oceans dry up? Webb's infrared vision allows it to track the history of water on the planet.
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- The quest to understand the history of water, which is crucial to life on Earth, feeds scientists' longstanding interest in whether life ever existed on Mars. Here, Webb can partner with the Perseverance rover's on-the-ground work, as well as future studies of its samples brought to Earth, to help researchers determine whether life ever existed on the planet, and if so, how long ago it might have died off.
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- Another lingering mystery is “Curiosity rover” detections of a strange, seasonal fluctuation in the amount of methane in Mars' atmosphere. On Earth, methane is produced by bacteria, but the chemical can also be made without life. A more detailed look at Mars' atmosphere might shed light on what is producing the methane and why its concentration could be changing with the Martian seasons.
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- Webb will examine much smaller objects like asteroids and comets, learning more about what they are made of and seeing some in greater detail than ever before. Webb is even ready to target any new comet that scientists might discover.
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- Other projects will target the Kuiper Belt, the icy "graveyard of the solar system." Pluto, its moon Charon, and thousands of other objects orbit the sun in this mysterious boundary zone of our solar system. Scientists believe that Kuiper Belt objects are left over from our solar system's beginnings and could help explain how our neighborhood formed. These are objects that are in the graveyard of solar system formation.
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- Other Webb science programs could bring insights to our solar system from beyond its boundaries. Scientists will study distant planetary systems in various stages of formation, perhaps shedding light on our own.
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- Big-picture questions like where the universe's water comes from would also have implications for the formation of planets like Earth. Possibly most of the water in the universe existed as ice, coating tiny, tiny dust grains in interstellar clouds and molecular clouds.
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- In its first year out of the 20 that NASA currently hopes to coax from the long-awaited observatory, roughly 7% of Webb's total operating time will focus on the solar system. That fraction may seem small, and scientists will always stumble into new mysteries about Jupiter's Great Red Spot or the comets rattling through our solar system.
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- As the observatory focuses on so many parts of our solar system, it's impossible to predict what Webb might find. Stay tuned, an announcement will be made shortly.
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July 10, 2022 JAMES WEBB - first light agenda? 3623
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