![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() But it was a perfect early target for Webb because its brightness is steady and the observatory can always spot it, so launch or deployment delays wouldn't affect the plan. HD 84406 is in the constellation Ursa Major, or Big Bear, but is not visible from Earth without a telescope. Mike Wall is the author of " Out There " (Grand Central Publishing, 2018 illustrated by Karl Tate), a book about the search for alien life. The telescope is now conducting a wide range of potentially transformational observations, from peering at some of the universe's first stars and galaxies to investigating the composition of nearby exoplanet atmospheres. The $10 billion observatory then journeyed toward the Earth-sun Lagrange Point 2, a gravitationally stable spot in space about 930,000 miles (1.5 million kilometers) from our planet.Īlong the way to L2, which it reached in late January 2022, JWST unfolded its huge sunshield and multi-segment primary mirror, acing a complex deployment sequence that had mission team members, scientists and space fans around the world holding their breath.Īfter a lengthy series of checkouts, the mission began its science campaign in June 2022, and NASA released the first JWST imagery to the public a month later. JWST launched atop a European Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana on Dec. James Webb Space Telescope hailed as the greatest science breakthrough of 2022 James Webb Space Telescope notches 1st rocky planet confirmation James Webb Space Telescope's 1st year in space has blown astronomers away "Now those questions can be investigated with real data." "Before Webb, dust-loving astronomers simply did not have enough detailed information to explore questions of dust production in environments like WR 124, and whether the dust grains were large and bountiful enough to survive the supernova and become a significant contribution to the overall dust budget," NASA officials wrote. That's because cosmic dust is best studied in infrared wavelengths, the type of light that JWST is optimized to observe. JWST's observations could shed light on this mysterious "dust budget surplus," they added. "Despite the many essential roles that dust plays, there is still more dust in the universe than astronomers' current dust-formation theories can explain." "Dust is integral to the workings of the universe: It shelters forming stars, gathers together to help form planets, and serves as a platform for molecules to form and clump together - including the building blocks of life on Earth," NASA officials wrote in the image description. All that dust, banal though it may sound, is extremely interesting to astronomers. WR 124 is about 30 times more massive than our sun and has ejected more than 10 solar masses' worth of gas and dust into space to date, NASA officials said. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team.) NASA released this JWST image on March 14, 2023. Cooler cosmic dust glows at the longer mid-infrared wavelengths, displaying the structure of WR 124's nebula. Wolf-Rayet stars are known to be efficient dust producers, and the Mid-Infrared Instrument on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope shows this to great effect. ![]()
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