James Webb Space Telescope, information, updates and discussion |
James Webb Space Telescope, information, updates and discussion |
Aug 23 2005, 02:01 PM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 134 Joined: 13-March 05 Member No.: 191 |
The manufacture of the JWST mirror blanks has now been completed.
Despite this milestone, the fate of JWST is still somewhat precarious, because although the scientific bang from the telescope is expected to be huge, the bucks required have increased to a staggering $4.5 billion. A Space.com article on the squeeze in NASA's space-based astronomy plans gives some background. The JWST home page can be found here. The Space Telescope Science Institute, which runs Hubble, also has a site here. As does ESA. |
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Oct 5 2022, 11:23 PM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 2998 Joined: 30-October 04 Member No.: 105 |
Ian, remember this is a NIR view of Neptune, and the rings/ring arcs may look different at those wavelenghts. I've not noticed anything more on this.
--Bill -------------------- |
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Oct 13 2022, 04:58 AM
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#3
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Member Group: Members Posts: 234 Joined: 14-January 22 Member No.: 9140 |
On Europa and Enceladus, which will be studied for plume signatures, for the first of certainly more than one time, in November and December:
I'm curious about JWST's ability to identify the signature of complex organics, and how calibration work would even be performed to determine their spectra. With a somewhat unconstrained number of possible organic compounds to look for, that seems like a lot of laboratory work involving unusual conditions to develop a catalog of reference spectra. This would seem like a need that has perhaps never existed before, but will be needed for interpreting JWST spectra of many objects, including Titan, comets, nebulae, exoplanet atmospheres, protoplanetary discs, and maybe more. One may think of Europa's and Enceladus's plumes as two more "exo"planet atmospheres for JWST to study. It's interesting to note that JWST will provide a kind of data that even missions that visit those worlds will not. Maybe we'll see the spectra published in 2023, but understanding them seems like it could be a long game. |
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Oct 13 2022, 08:07 AM
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#4
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Member Group: Members Posts: 104 Joined: 3-February 20 From: Paris (France) Member No.: 8747 |
On Europa and Enceladus, which will be studied for plume signatures, for the first of certainly more than one time, in November and December: I'm curious about JWST's ability to identify the signature of complex organics, and how calibration work would even be performed to determine their spectra. With a somewhat unconstrained number of possible organic compounds to look for, that seems like a lot of laboratory work involving unusual conditions to develop a catalog of reference spectra. This would seem like a need that has perhaps never existed before, but will be needed for interpreting JWST spectra of many objects, including Titan, comets, nebulae, exoplanet atmospheres, protoplanetary discs, and maybe more. One may think of Europa's and Enceladus's plumes as two more "exo"planet atmospheres for JWST to study. It's interesting to note that JWST will provide a kind of data that even missions that visit those worlds will not. Maybe we'll see the spectra published in 2023, but understanding them seems like it could be a long game. Hey, An excerpt from the article https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/ , describing an observation of the Wolf-Rayet 140 binary star, or more precisely the cosmic dust shells surrounding it, might give some clues to this : “With the Medium-Resolution Spectroscopy (MRS) mode on MIRI, we obtained the first spatially resolved mid-infrared spectra of a dust-forming WR binary in our observation of WR 140, and were able to directly probe the chemical signatures of its dust shells. Broad and prominent features in the spectral lines at 6.4 and 7.7 microns told us that the dust was composed of compounds consistent with Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs). This carbonaceous material plays an important role in the interstellar medium and the formation of stars and planets, but its origin is a long-standing mystery. With the combined results of JWST’s MRS spectra and MIRI imaging, we now have evidence that WR binaries can be an important source of carbon-rich compounds that enrich the interstellar environment of our galaxy, and likely galaxies beyond our own.” Of course, we have to take into consideration the big difference between plumes coming from satellites in our solar system and the dust envelopes around a binary star located at light years... |
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Oct 17 2022, 01:22 AM
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Member Group: Members Posts: 234 Joined: 14-January 22 Member No.: 9140 |
It's funny, Q, I also saw this story shortly after I posted. While it's definitely an interesting result, it is presented with qualifiers, "consistent with Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons," which indicates an educated hypothesis, but not proof, and also not very specific. I guess we're going to want to know a lot more about organics in the plumes of Europa and Enceladus, but of course, you take what you can get, and it's impressive that this sort of result can be had from light years away. We also have, in the case of Enceladus, some previous in situ sampling, and with Europa we expect that within a decade, so we will get to cross-reference one kind of data with another.
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