MIRI Archives

HST/WFC3 NICMOS F212N image of NGC 7027 with JWST MIRI-MRS FOVs for channels 1 (red), 2, and 3 (white) overlaid. The black cross indicates the position of the central star. The yellow contours outline the H2 gas morphology in the continuum-subtracted HST/NICMOS images from Latter et al. (2000). The small orange, pink, blue, and green boxes are the spaxels used to illustrate the AIB variability referred to hereinafter as the E ring, outer NE corner, inner region, and the SW ring, respectively. Credit: NASA/ESA, Latter et al. (2000). -- astro-ph.SR

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

PAH Spectral Diversity in NGC 7027 and the Evolution of Aromatic Carriers

by Keith CowingOctober 24, 2025October 22, 2025

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) constitute a significant fraction of the Universe’s carbon budget, playing a key role in the cosmic carbon cycle and dominating the mid-infrared spectra of astrophysical environments […]

Best-fit model for the three light curves extracted using aperture photometry with Eureka!. Outliers beyond 4 σ are clipped. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Reanalysis Of The Eclipses Of LHS 1140 c: No Evidence Of An Atmosphere And Implications For The Internal Structure Of The Planet

by Keith CowingOctober 24, 2025October 22, 2025

We present the reanalysis of three 15 micron JWST/MIRI secondary eclipses of LHS 1140 c, a warm super-Earth (Rp = 1.272 R⊕) in a 3.78-day orbit around an M4.5 dwarf.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope’s (JWST) Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), researchers detected organic molecules with more than six atoms frozen in ice around a young star called ST6 forming in the neighboring galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud. The full galaxy is shown in the far-infrared image in the top right inset. The main image is the zoom-in on the star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud hosting the protostar ST6. It is a combination of mid-infrared data from Spitzer and visible (H-alpha) data from the 0.9-m Curtis Schmidt Telescope. The Webb’s MIRI image at a wavelength of 19 microns in the main inset shows the protostar ST6. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/JPL-Caltech/M. Sewiło et al. (2025)

Astrochemistry, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Interstellar, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release

Building Blocks Of Life Located In Ice Around A Forming Star In A Neighboring Galaxy

by Keith CowingOctober 21, 2025October 21, 2025

In a discovery that could reshape our understanding of how the chemical ingredients for life spread throughout the cosmos, astronomers detected organic molecules with more than six atoms frozen in […]

Example reduced and Fourier-transformed images, showing a MEOW target, WD 0839-327. Left: The image of the WD which is cropped, bad pixel corrected, and multiplied with a super-Gaussian window to suppress pixels far from the PSF center. Right: The Fourier transform is taken and sampled at a grid of regularly-spaced uv coordinates, where phases are extracted and then projected into KPs. -- astro-ph.IM

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

First Demonstration of Kernel Phase Interferometry on JWST/MIRI: Prospects for Future Planet Searches Around Post Main Sequence Stars

by Keith CowingOctober 21, 2025October 21, 2025

Kernel phase interferometry (KPI) is a post-processing technique that treats a conventional telescope as an interferometer by accurately modeling a telescope pupil as an array of virtual subapertures.

Retrieval results on the full spectrum for three difference MIRI pixel shifts. The top panel shows the transit spectrum with the median retrieved spectral model and representative 1σ and 2σ credibility envelopes. The lower subpanels show the inferred 1D marginalized posterior distributions for the isothermal temperature (T), CH4, CO2, C2H4, DMS, DMDS, and C2H5Cl. -- The Astronomical Journal

Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Habitable Zones, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report, Venus

Sub-Neptune Exoplanet K2-18b Does Not Meet the Standards Of Evidence For Life

by Keith CowingOctober 9, 2025

K2-18b, a temperate sub-Neptune, has garnered significant attention due to claims of possible biosignatures in its atmosphere. Low-confidence detections of dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) have sparked considerable […]

False-color combination image, using all four MIRI imaging wavelength bands. For scale, we display the spatial extent of the giant planets in the solar system, highlighting that we are spatially resolving a relatively extended disk component in the ε Eri system. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Epsilon Eridani, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

JWST/MIRI Imaging of the Warm Dust Component of the Epsilon Eridani Debris Disk

by Keith CowingOctober 6, 2025October 6, 2025

We present JWST/MIRI observations of the debris disk surrounding the nearby, solar analog Epsilon Eridani obtained as part of the Archetypal Debris Disk GTO program.

An artistic rendering of a dust and gas disk encircling the young exoplanet, CT Cha b, 625 light-years from Earth. Spectroscopic data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope suggests the disk contains the raw materials for moon formation: diacetylene, hydrogen cyanide, propyne, acetylene, ethane, carbon dioxide, and benzene. The planet appears at lower right, while its host star and surrounding circumstellar disk are visible in the background. Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Gabriele Cugno (University of Zürich, NCCR PlanetS), Sierra Grant (Carnegie Institution for Science), Joseph Olmsted (STScI), Leah Hustak (STScI)

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Callisto, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Ganymede, Icy Worlds, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Webb Studies A Carbon-rich Moon-Forming Disk Around A Massive Planet

by Keith CowingSeptember 30, 2025September 30, 2025

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has provided the first direct measurements of the chemical and physical properties of a potential moon-forming disk encircling a large exoplanet. The carbon-rich disk surrounding […]

This image, which combines infrared data from the James Webb Space Telescope with submillimetre observations from the Atacama Large Millimetre/submillimetre Array (ALMA), shows the doughnut-shaped torus and interconnected bubbles of dusty gas that surround the Butterfly Nebula’s central star. The torus is oriented vertically and nearly edge-on from our perspective, and it intersects with bubbles of gas enclosing the star. The bubbles appear bright red in this image, illuminated by the light from helium and neon gas. Outside the bubbles, jets traced by emission from ionised iron shoot off in opposite directions. Credit ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Matsuura, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), N. Hirano, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb) larger image

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Biosignatures & Paleobiology, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Press Release

Butterfly Nebula (NGC 6302) Reveals Clues To Earth’s Creation

by Keith CowingAugust 28, 2025August 28, 2025

Clues about how worlds like Earth may have formed have been found buried at the heart of a spectacular ‘cosmic butterfly’.

Compilation of pebble mass flux vs. time evolutions. Solid lines show models developed in this study for various gap positions (see Sect. 3.1), which can be compared to mass fluxes required in pebble accretion simulations to form diverse inner planetary systems (dashed area, see M. Lambrechts et al. 2019) and the pebble mass flux inferred for the inner solar system using models capable of matching the NC/CC isotopic dichotomy (red dashed, see T. Lichtenberg et al. 2021). Symbols show ages and cold water masses of all 21 objects in our sample computed from JWST/MIRI line ratios (Table 1) in combination with Eq. 4 (see Appendix A), and the left and right y-axes are related through Eq. 3. Symbol color corresponds to inner gap position as obtained from high-spatial-resolution ALMA observations (see Sect. 2) and error-bars reflect uncertainties in measured line ratios. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrochemistry, Astrogeology, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Icy Worlds, Status Report

Cosmic Cascades: How Disk Substructure Regulates The Flow Of Water To Inner Planetary Systems

by Keith CowingAugust 15, 2025August 15, 2025

The influx of icy pebbles to the inner regions of protoplanetary disks constitutes a fundamental ingredient in most planet formation theories.

Spatial distributions of MnS (left) and Na2S (right) clouds as a function of longitude, averaged over all latitudes, and pressure in our cloudy SPARC/MITgcm model. The color mapping represents the mass mixing ratio of the cloud particle, with the same scaling in each panel. -- astro-ph.EP

Astrogeology, Astronomy & Telescopes, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Exoplanets, -moons, -comets, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Status Report

A Panchromatic Characterization Of The Evening And Morning Atmosphere Of WASP-107 b

by Keith CowingJuly 28, 2025July 28, 2025

Limb-resolved transmission spectroscopy has the potential to transform our understanding of exoplanetary atmospheres. By separately measuring the transmission spectra of the evening and morning limbs, these atmospheric regions can be […]

MIRI

PAH Spectral Diversity in NGC 7027 and the Evolution of Aromatic Carriers

Reanalysis Of The Eclipses Of LHS 1140 c: No Evidence Of An Atmosphere And Implications For The Internal Structure Of The Planet

Building Blocks Of Life Located In Ice Around A Forming Star In A Neighboring Galaxy

First Demonstration of Kernel Phase Interferometry on JWST/MIRI: Prospects for Future Planet Searches Around Post Main Sequence Stars

Sub-Neptune Exoplanet K2-18b Does Not Meet the Standards Of Evidence For Life

JWST/MIRI Imaging of the Warm Dust Component of the Epsilon Eridani Debris Disk

Webb Studies A Carbon-rich Moon-Forming Disk Around A Massive Planet

Butterfly Nebula (NGC 6302) Reveals Clues To Earth’s Creation

Cosmic Cascades: How Disk Substructure Regulates The Flow Of Water To Inner Planetary Systems

A Panchromatic Characterization Of The Evening And Morning Atmosphere Of WASP-107 b

High-CO2 Climates And Observables In The Outer Habitable Zone

Thermally Irreversible Sulfur Chemisorption On Silicate Grains As A Major Sulfur Reservoir In Molecular Clouds

Planetary Eccentricity Enhances Inward Comet Transport But Suppresses Gentle Impacts

Detecting Extragalactic Exoplanets With Fast Radio Burst Nanolensing

Chondrule Size Averaging In Two And Three Dimensions