James Webb Telescope Unveils Jupiter’s Auroras In Stunning Detail

Celebrating One Year of James Webb Telescope Image of Stephan's Quintet

The image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope unveils a magnificent mosaic, Webb's largest image to date, covering an area equivalent to about one-fifth of the Moon's diameter. Composed of nearly 1,000 separate image files, this mosaic consists of over 150 million pixels, enabling scientists to delve into the intricate details of Stephan's Quintet. Read full article here.

Discovery Alert! In a new discovery released on Nov 15, 2023, Webb Telescope Unveils Neon Secrets in SZ Cha's Protoplanetary Disk. Read more here

In a new discovery released on Nov 15, 2023, Webb Telescope Unveils Neon Secrets in SZ Cha's Protoplanetary Disk. Read more here

🚀✨ NASA's Webb Telescope Unveils Neon Secrets in Young Star's Protoplanetary Disk ✨🔭

🌌 Delve into the mysteries of planet formation with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope! 🌌

🔍 Exploring the Neon Clues: Peek into the spinning disk of dust around young star SZ Chamaeleontis (SZ Cha). Webb's revelation of distinct neon traces adds a new chapter to our understanding of planetary systems.

🪐 Neon's Role in Unraveling the Mystery: Neon becomes the cosmic clock, revealing the type and intensity of radiation bombarding the protoplanetary disk. Discover why the neon readings' shift from Spitzer to Webb is rewriting the rules of planet formation.

🕰️ Planets in a Race Against Time: Uncover the influence of a variable wind on high-energy radiation, affecting the disk's evaporation. SZ Cha's planetary system races against time as neon signatures fluctuate, shaping the destiny of potential planets.

James Webb Observation Alert! James Webb Telescope's Cosmic Odyssey to Probe NGC 6240 the Starfish Galaxy - Full article here

Prepare to be captivated by the celestial wonders of the universe! The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is gearing up for an extraordinary cosmic odyssey as it trains its gaze on NGC 6240, the enigmatic Starfish Galaxy, scheduled for August 14, 2023. Follow this page to stay up to date with the upcoming observations and discoveries!

Observation Alert ! James Webb Telescope to Unravel Mysteries of Crystal Ball Nebula this week. Read more here

🌌✨ Exploring the Cosmic Beauty of NGC 1514: Webb's Odyssey ✨🌌

On September 27, 2023, the James Webb Space Telescope (Webb) is turning its gaze towards NGC 1514, the stunning planetary nebula often lovingly dubbed the "Crystal Ball Nebula." 🌟🔭

💫 What's So Special About NGC 1514? 💫

NGC 1514 is not your ordinary nebula. It's a celestial jewel situated in the Taurus constellation, 800 light-years away from our blue dot in the cosmos. This ethereal wonder consists of a pair of stars at its core – one, a dying giant star, heavier and hotter than our own Sun, and the other, a white dwarf, a compact, stellar remnant. 🌟💫

🪐 The Cosmic Ballet Unveiled 🪐

As the aging giant star gracefully dances through its final act, it sheds its outer layers, creating a luminous inner shell in radiant blues. An outer shell, displaying more translucent hues of blue, embraces this inner beauty, forming a breathtaking sphere in the vast expanse of space. It's a stellar ballet of light and color, a tribute to the cosmos' artistry. 🎶🌠

🔍 Webb's Mission: Unveiling Cosmic Secrets 🔍

The James Webb Space Telescope is our cosmic detective, equipped with state-of-the-art technology. Webb will delve into NGC 1514's heart, revealing the secrets of stellar evolution, the nebula's chemical composition, and its dynamic evolution over time. This observation offers insights into the cosmic history that ties all stars, including our Sun, together. 🌌🔍

🔭 Prepare to Be Enchanted 🔭

The universe has a way of leaving us in awe, and NGC 1514 is no exception. As Webb captures the beauty and mysteries of this planetary nebula, we're in for a breathtaking cosmic show. Stay tuned for Webb's upcoming reveal and join us in celebrating the wonders of the universe. ✨🌠

📸 Image Credit: Courtesy of the Digitized Sky Survey, hosted at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Maryland.

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Discovery Alert! In a new Discovery released on Nov 8, 2023, James Webb Telescope Just Discovered the Process of Planet Creation. Read full article here

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has just dropped a major cosmic bombshell! 🚀🔭

🪐🔮 You know the age-old question - How are planets born? Well, scientists have long suspected that it all starts with ice-covered pebbles drifting closer to newborn stars. The theory goes like this: these pebbles journey from the chilly, outer regions of the stellar disk and, as they move into warmer territory, they unleash loads of cold water vapor, delivering both water and solid materials crucial for planet formation.

🌠✨ BUT, here's the mind-blowing part! The James Webb Space Telescope has captured this remarkable process in action! It has unveiled the missing link between water vapor in the inner disk and the migration of these icy pebbles from the outer disk. 🛰️🪙

🔍🌠 This groundbreaking discovery opens the door to a whole new realm of possibilities in our quest to understand how rocky planets come to life! 🌎🌟

Stay tuned for more celestial wonders and join us as we delve into the depths of the universe! 🚀💫 #WebbTelescope #CosmicDiscovery #PlanetFormation #AstronomyWonders

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An astronomical waltz reveals a sextuplet of planets

An international collaboration between astronomers using the CHEOPS and TESS space satellites, including NCCR PlanetS members from the University of Bern and the University of Geneva, have found a key new system of six transiting planets orbiting a bright star in a harmonic rhythm. This rare property enabled the team to determine the planetary orbits which initially appeared as an unsolvable riddle.

CHEOPS is a joint mission by ESA and Switzerland, under the leadership of the University of Bern in collaboration with the University of Geneva. Thanks to a collaboration with scientists working with data from NASA’s satellite TESS, the international team could uncover the planetary system orbiting the nearby star HD110067. A very distinctive feature of this system is its chain of resonances: the planets orbit their host star in perfect harmony. Part of the research team are researchers from the University of Bern and the University of Geneva who are also members of the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS. The findings have just been published in Nature.

The planets in the HD110067 system revolve around the star in a very precise waltz. When the closest planet to the star makes three full revolutions around it, the second one makes exactly two during the same time. This is called a 3:2 resonance. “Amongst the over 5000 exoplanets discovered orbiting other stars than our Sun, resonances are not rare, nor are systems with several planets. What is extremely rare though, is to find systems where the resonances span such a long chain of six planets” points out Dr. Hugh Osborn, CHEOPS fellow at the University of Bern, leader of CHEOPS observation programme involved in the study, and co-author of the publication. This is precisely the case of HD110067 whose planets form a so-called “resonant chain” in successive pairs of 3:2, 3:2, 3:2, 4:3, and 4:3 resonances, resulting in the closest planet completing six orbits while the outer-most planet does one.

A seemingly unsolvable puzzle

Although multiple planets were initially detected thanks to their transits, the exact arrangement of the planets was unclear at first. However, the precise gravitational dance enabled the scientists’ team to solve the puzzle of HD110067. Prof. Adrien Leleu from the University of Geneva, in charge of analysing the orbital resonances, and co-author of the study, explains: “A transit occurs when a planet, from our point of view, passes in front of its host star, blocking a minute fraction of the starlight, creating an apparent dip of its brightness.” From the first observations carried out by NASA’s TESS satellite, it was possible to determine that the two inner planets called ‘b’ and ‘c’ have orbital periods of 9 and 14 days respectively. However, no conclusions could be drawn for the other four detected planets as two were seen to transit once in 2020 and once in 2022 with a large 2-year gap in the data, and the other two transited only once in 2022.

The solution to the puzzle for those four additional planets finally began to emerge thanks to observations with the CHEOPS space telescope. While TESS aims at scanning all of the sky bit by bit to find short-period exoplanets, CHEOPS is a targeted mission, focusing on a single star at a time with exquisite precision. “Our CHEOPS observations enabled us to find that the period of planet ‘d’ is 20.5 days. Also, it ruled out multiple possibilities for the remaining three outer planets, ‘e’, ‘f’ and ‘g’,” reveals Osborn.

Predicting the precise waltz of the planets

That is when the team realized that the three inner planets of HD110067 are dancing in a precise 3:2, 3:2 chain of resonances: when the innermost planet revolves nine times around the star, the second revolves six times and the third planet four times.

The team then considered the possibility that the three other planets could also be part of the chain of resonances. “This led to dozens of possibilities for their orbital period,” explains Leleu, “but combining existing observational data from TESS and CHEOPS, with our model of the gravitational interactions between the planets, we could exclude all solutions but one: the 3:2, 3:2, 3:2, 4:3, 4:3 chain.” The scientists could therefore predict that the outer three planets (‘e’, ‘f’ and ‘g’) have orbital periods of 31, 41 days, and 55 days.

This prediction allowed to schedule observations with a variety of ground-based telescopes. Further transits of planet ‘f’ were observed, revealing it was precisely where theory predicted it based on the resonant-chain. Finally, reanalysis of the data from TESS revealed two hidden transits, one from each of planets ‘f’ and ‘g’, exactly at the times expected by the predictions, confirming the periods of the six planets. Additional CHEOPS observations of each planet, and in particular planet ‘e’ are scheduled in the near future.

A key system for the future

From the handful of resonant-chain systems found so far, CHEOPS has highly contributed to the understanding of not only HD110067, but also of TOI-178. Another well-known example of a resonant-chain system is the TRAPPIST-1 system which hosts seven rocky planets. However, TRAPPIST-1 is a small and incredibly faint star which makes any additional observations very difficult. HD110067, on the other hand, is more than 50 times brighter than TRAPPIST-1.

“The fact that the planets in the HD110067 system have been detected by the transit method is key. While they pass in front of the star, light also filters through the planetary atmospheres” points out Jo Ann Egger, PhD student at the University of Bern, who computed the composition of the planets using CHEOPS data, and co-author of the study. This property is allowing astronomers to determine the chemical composition and other properties of the atmospheres. Since a lot of light is required, the bright star HD110067 and its orbiting planets are an ideal target for further studies to charachterize the planetary atmospheres. “The sub-Neptune planets of the HD110067 system appear to have low masses, suggesting they may be gas- or water-rich. Future observations, for example with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), of these planetary atmospheres could determine whether the planets have rocky or water-rich interior structures,” concludes Egger.

TOP IMAGE....A rare family of six exoplanets has been unlocked with the help of ESA’s Cheops mission. The planets in this family are all smaller than Neptune and revolve around their star HD110067 in a very precise waltz. When the closest planet to the star makes three full revolutions around it, the second one makes exactly two during the same time. This is called a 3:2 resonance. The six planets form a resonant chain in pairs of 3:2, 3:2, 3:2, 4:3, and 4:3, resulting in the closest planet completing six orbits while the outer-most planet does one. Cheops confirmed the orbital period of the third planet in the system, which was the key to unlocking the rhythm of the entire system. This is the second planetary system in orbital resonance that Cheops has helped reveal. The first one is called TOI-178. Credit © ESA

LOWER IMAGE....Tracing a link between two neighbour planet at regular time interval along their orbits, creates a pattern unique to each couple. The six planets of the HD110067 system create together a mesmerising geometric pattern due to their resonance-chain. Credit © , Thibaut Roger/NCCR PlanetS

The evolutionary paths of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies

A new paper entitled “Evolutionary Paths of Active Galactic Nuclei and Their Host Galaxies,” published on August 17, 2023, in Nature Astronomy, provides critical new insights on the co-evolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies. The tight correlations observed between the masses of supermassive black holes and the properties of their host galaxies have long intrigued astronomers. No consensus has been reached, however, on how the black hole-galaxy relations arose or how they evolved over time. The specific link between the black hole mass and the properties of host galaxies of AGNs in the nearby universe has remained elusive. The study found that galaxies with actively accreting black holes follow a similar relationship between black hole mass and stellar mass, regardless of galaxy type. Moreover, the position of a galaxy on this relation appears linked to the level of star formation and black hole accretion activity. "Our results unveil evolutionary trajectories for galaxies on the black hole mass-stellar mass plane," said Dr. Zhuang. “The joint evolution of the galaxy and its central black hole appears synchronized over long timescales. Galaxies that have overweight black holes catch up by making more stars. Those that have skinny black holes allow the black hole to eat more. In the end, the two reach a happy balance.”   The availability of a common gas supply for black hole accretion and star formation may account for the lockstep, synchronized growth of objects on the local relation. The evolutionary path of objects with undermassive black holes situated below the local relation supports a scenario suggested by recent simulations in which black hole growth initially lags behind star formation but later the situation reverses after the gas becomes stabilized at higher stellar mass.  AGNs with overmassive black holes above the local relation continue to gain stellar mass, consistent with the detection of active star formation and abundant gas content in early-type AGN host galaxies. These trajectories suggest that radiative-mode AGN feedback mechanisms, which are expected to suppress star formation, are less effective for galaxies below the scaling relation. For galaxies above the relation, kinetic-mode feedback appears insufficient to halt long-term star formation. "This work provides new insights on the coevolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies that can serve as the definitive benchmark and framework for evolutionary studies," highlighted Prof. Ho. "The results offer critical observational constraints for numerical simulations modeling the complex interplay between black holes and their host galaxies." “This article explores the evolutionary paths of galaxies on the black hole mass–stellar mass plane in the nearby Universe, linking the properties of star formation and black hole accretion and providing critical constraints for active galactic nuclei feedback,” the editor of Nature Astronomy highly commends. “The findings in this paper are extremely interesting and are quite important for our understanding of black hole and galaxy co-evolution across cosmic times and their star formation and accretion,” says one of the reviewers.

Discovery Alert! In a discovery released on March 4, 2024 - Webb Telescope Just Found the Most Distant Black Hole EVER and Hints at the First Stars!

🪐 The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) just dropped some mind-blowing discoveries and it's got the whole astronomy community buzzing.

Here's the lowdown:

Supermassive Black Hole from the Early Universe: JWST spotted the farthest black hole ever observed, chilling in the heart of a galaxy called GN-z11. This monster is 2 million times the mass of our sun and existed a mere 430 million years after the Big Bang!

Pristine Gas Hints at First Stars: Another JWST team found a clump of mostly helium gas surrounding GN-z11. This gas is super clean, almost untouched by heavier elements, suggesting it could be leftover material from the Big Bang itself! This discovery hints at the possible presence of the legendary Population III stars, the first generation of stars in the universe, composed mainly of hydrogen and helium.

These findings are HUGE! They offer a glimpse into the infancy of the universe, revealing how black holes formed and hinting at the birth of the very first stars. JWST is truly revolutionizing our understanding of the cosmos! ✨

What do you think? Did these discoveries blow your mind? Share your thoughts in the comments! #JWST #Space #BlackHole #FirstStars #Cosmology #MindBlown

Read more here - Webb Discovers Most Distant Black Hole, Hints of Primordial Gas in GN-z11

James Webb Telescope's Exploration of the Cat's Eye Nebula and its Galactic Impact #jameswebbspacetelescope #jwst #nasa #catseye #nebula

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