Stephan's Quintet is a group of five galaxies, four of which (on the right) are about 90 million parsecs from Earth. The topmost galaxy, NGC 7319, harbours a supermassive black hole that is pulling in stellar material around it.Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI The views of the Universe just keep getting better. NASA's US$10-billion James Webb Space Telescope released four new scientific images on 12 July, including newborn stars sparkling through dramatic 'cliffs' of gas, and galaxies interacting in an intricate cosmic dance. A day earlier, astronomers had marveled at its very first image, a mind-boggling deep dive into the distant Universe. Webb observes the cosmos in infrared wavelengths, which gives it a different view than many other observatories, such as the Hubble Space Telescope. Webb's 6.5-metre-wide mirror is the largest ever launched into space, and the combination of the large mirror and its infrared detection capabilities allow Webb an unprecedented view of many astronomical phenomena....
MIT researchers have discovered four new exoplanets orbiting a sun-like star just over 200 light-years from Earth. Because of the diversity of these planets and brightness of their star, this system could be an ideal target for atmospheric characterization with NASAâs upcoming James Webb Space Telescope. Tansu Daylan, a postdoc at the MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, led the study published in The Astronomical Journal on Jan. 25.
With further study, says Daylan, this bright star and its many planets could be critical to understanding how planets take shape and evolve. âWhen it comes to characterizing planetary atmospheres around sun-like stars, this is likely one of the best targets we will ever get,â he says of the results he presented earlier in the month at the 237th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Daylan and his colleagues detected these planets with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an MIT-led NASA mission. To identify exoplanets with TESS, researchers look for changes in the amount of light coming from a star. A small dip in a starâs light could mean that a planet has passed in front of it, blocking some of its light from reaching Earth. By measuring these transits, scientists can approximate the size of a planet, how long it takes to orbit its star, and whether it has other planetary neighbors. Combined with other observation methods, like measuring the gravitational effects a planet has on its host star, researchers can determine if a planet is rocky or gaseous, hot or cold, and even if it has a thick or thin atmosphere....
