JWST Archives

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Callisto, Comets and Asteroids, Enceladus, Europa, Ganymede, Habitable Zones, Icy Worlds, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

SwRI Scientists Find Evidence Of Geothermal Activity Within Icy Dwarf Planets

by Keith CowingFebruary 15, 2024March 23, 2024

A team co-led by Southwest Research Institute found evidence for hydrothermal or metamorphic activity within the icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake, located in the Kuiper Belt. Methane detected on […]

The mass-metallicity correlation among planets, with the x-axis representing planet mass in Jupiter masses (MJ ) and the y-axis denoting normalized planetary abundance, both are in logarithmic scales. Our normalized H2O abundances are denoted by blue open circles, while the solid blue line represents the best-fit linear regression. The shaded blue region delineates the 1σ and 2σ quantiles. The trend depicted in W19 is shown by the dotted blue line, which exhibits a slightly more significant slope than ours. The linear model in our analysis is expressed as log(H2O) = -0.92+0.32 −0.33log(M/MJ ) – 0.90+0.21 −0.20. A recent detection of H2O from JWST/NIRISS for HAT-P-18b (Fu et al. 2022) is shown in the light purple circle in Figure 2. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Status Report

A Revisit Of The Mass-Metallicity Trends In Transiting Exoplanets

by Keith CowingFebruary 14, 2024

The two prevailing planet formation scenarios, core-accretion and disk instability, predict distinct planetary mass-metallicity relations. Yet, the detection of this trend remains challenging due to inadequate data on planet atmosphere […]

SwRI Scientists Identify Water Molecules On Asteroids - SwRI

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Comets and Asteroids, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

SwRI Scientists Identify Water Molecules On Asteroids For The First Time

by Keith CowingFebruary 13, 2024September 18, 2025

Using data from the retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) — a joint project of NASA and the German Space Agency at DLR — Southwest Research Institute scientists have […]

Artistic representation of an exoplanet whose water ice on the surface is increasingly vaporizing and forming an atmosphere during its approach to the central star of the planetary system. This process increases the measured planetary radius compared to the value the planet would have at its place of origin. CREDIT Thomas Müller (MPIA)

Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Gas Giants, Press Release, Water/Hycean Worlds & Oceanography

Migration Solves An Exoplanet Puzzle

by Keith CowingFebruary 9, 2024February 9, 2024

Ordinarily, planets in evolved planetary systems, such as the Solar System, follow stable orbits around their central star. However, many indications suggest that some planets might depart from their birthplaces […]

Conceptual schematic of three different ways to use Octofitter. Other possibilities, like combining images with Doppler or astrometric velocimetry or using a mix of relative astrometry and images without detections to constrain orbits, are also possible. -- astro-ph.EP

AI - Data - Apps - Cybernetics, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

Octofitter: Fast, Flexible, and Accurate Orbit Modelling to Detect Exoplanets

by Keith CowingFebruary 6, 2024

As next-generation imaging instruments and interferometers search for planets closer to their stars, they must contend with increasing orbital motion and longer integration times. These compounding effects make it difficult […]

Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) image of M 82 (Mutchler et al. 2007) with the JWST NIRCam central mosaic footprint overlaid for reference. We use F658N (Hα), F555W, and F435W for red, green, and blue respectively. These JWST observations cover the central region of the starburst and the base of the wind bi-cone. They are part of a larger mosaic imaging the wind and the starburst, which will be acquired in 2024. -- astro-ph.GA

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Interstellar, Status Report

JWST Observations of Starbursts: Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Emission at the base of the M 82 Galactic Wind

by Keith CowingFebruary 1, 2024February 1, 2024

We present new observations of the central 1 kpc of the M 82 starburst obtained with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) near-infrared camera (NIRCam) instrument at a resolution ~0.05″-0.1″ […]

We select 10 and 5 candidate planets around nearby stars for ELT/HARMONI and ELT/METIS, respectively. As the spatial resolution of ELT/HARMONI is smaller than the plotting range, we only show the spatial resolution for ELT/METIS as the vertical dotted blue line. Planets located to the right of the dotted line are suitable planets for ELT/METIS. All colored points are suitable planets for ELT/HARMONI. The size of the colored point is proportional to the planet radius. The color of the point is based on the equilibrium temperature. All colored data points are the candidate planets listed in Table 1. Selection criteria can be found in Section 2.1. The gray points are other exoplanets from NEA that are less suitable for direct imaging with ELT. -- Ohio State University

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Press Release, Proxima Centauri

Biosignatures: Looking For Signs Of Life Among Exoplanet Atmospheres

by Keith CowingFebruary 1, 2024February 1, 2024

The next generation of advanced telescopes could sharpen the hunt for potential extraterrestrial life by closely scrutinizing the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets, new research suggests.

JWST/NIRSpec integrated spectra and 1σ uncertainties (gray error bars) of Callisto’s leading (purple) and trailing (red) hemisphere, normalized to 1 at 3.82 μm and offset vertically for clarity. The G395H grating has a ~0.1 μm wide wavelength gap, shifting between ~4 and 4.2 μm across NIRSpec IFU’s 29 image slices. Some of the image slices that span Callisto’s disk include wavelength coverage between ~4 and 4.2 μm, which are shown here for Callisto’s leading (bright blue) and trailing (bright orange) hemispheres. All spectral features identified in this study are labeled, with dotted lines indicating their central wavelengths. Features with confirmed compositions have bolded labels, whereas weak features, or those with multiple compositional interpretations, are italicized and followed by question marks. Possible bands and spectral structure at wavelength >4.98 μm may result from data calibration artifacts and are not analyzed in this study. The inset box shows a close-up of the 4.19 to 4.42 μm wavelength range, highlighting the CO2 features we have identified and the different band centers for 12CO2 on Callisto’s leading (4.254 μm) and trailing (4.250 μm) hemisphere, as well as a feature near 4.3 μm that may result from an isotope of CO2 or could be a residual solar line (Appendix A.3). -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Callisto, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Jupiter, Status Report

Revealing Callisto’s Carbon-rich Surface And CO2 Atmosphere With JWST

by Keith CowingJanuary 31, 2024January 31, 2024

We analyzed spectral cubes of Callisto’s leading and trailing hemispheres, collected with the NIRSpec Integrated Field Unit (G395H) on the James Webb Space Telescope.

Binned 5.2 µm slice of the PSF subtracted spectral cube showing the extended emission from hot dust. We apply an image normalization where vmin = −200 MJy/sr and vmax = 800 MJy/sr to emphasize emission from a spatially extended disk. The purple line shows a 5σ contour of the dust emission, the red circle shows the angular resolution of Spitzer at 5 µm (assuming it is diffraction limited) and the black circle shows the extraction aperture used for the MRS. The red cross shows the location of the central star. -- astro-ph.EP

Astronomy & Telescopes, Beta Pictoris, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

MIRI MRS Observations Of Beta Pictoris I. The Inner Dust, The Planet, And The Gas

by Keith CowingJanuary 31, 2024January 30, 2024

We present JWST MIRI Medium Resolution Spectrograph (MRS) observations of the β Pictoris system. We detect an infrared excess from the central unresolved point source from 5 to 7.5 μm […]