NASA - James Webb Space Telescope - Discussion Thread 2

[Star One]

When is JWST scheduled to observe the Proxima system?

I don't find any observations scheduled in the General Observer program for this year.
I did find an observation of Aplha Centauri A, scheduled for today. Program ID 01618.

you can put program IDs and get their schedule here. No option to search this by target. So I grabbed the GO Cycle 1 abstracts and got the program ID from there.
https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/program-information.html

Thank you. Just from my limited amateur understanding I could see no planned observations which puzzled me for such a target.

[Don2]

I processed a couple of gravitationally lensed arcs from the MAST archive. The first is the 'Sunrise Arc' which contains the lensed star Earendel. This galaxy is at a redshift of 6.2 when the universe was less than 1 billion years old. I counted five more possible lensed arcs in the image.
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2022/03/The_Sunrise_Arc_galaxy_with_lensed_tar_Earendel_annotated

The second is SGAS 1723. I can't find out much about it but I think it is much closer. It is from Early Release Program 1353 (PI Jane Rigby) and the filters are F115W-F277W-F444W.

(CORRECTED PI Name for Sunrise arc from D.Cole  to D.Coe)

[ttle2]

When is JWST scheduled to observe the Proxima system?

I don't find any observations scheduled in the General Observer program for this year.
I did find an observation of Aplha Centauri A, scheduled for today. Program ID 01618.

you can put program IDs and get their schedule here. No option to search this by target. So I grabbed the GO Cycle 1 abstracts and got the program ID from there.
https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/program-information.html

Thank you. Just from my limited amateur understanding I could see no planned observations which puzzled me for such a target.

Proxima b isn't transiting (unlike TRAPPIST-1 planets) so no transit spectroscopy and the planet is very close to the star, so no chance of direct imaging either. I don't think JWST can do that much for Proxima.

[Star One]

When is JWST scheduled to observe the Proxima system?

I don't find any observations scheduled in the General Observer program for this year.
I did find an observation of Aplha Centauri A, scheduled for today. Program ID 01618.

you can put program IDs and get their schedule here. No option to search this by target. So I grabbed the GO Cycle 1 abstracts and got the program ID from there.
https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/program-information.html

Thank you. Just from my limited amateur understanding I could see no planned observations which puzzled me for such a target.

Proxima b isn't transiting (unlike TRAPPIST-1 planets) so no transit spectroscopy and the planet is very close to the star, so no chance of direct imaging either. I don't think JWST can do that much for Proxima.

So that rules out Proxima C as well then.

[Steve G]

What's the mechanism for releasing new images? Will it be the Webb people or the various investigators requesting the targets?

[Hobbes-22]

For the General Observer program (i.e. observations requested by astronomers outside the JWST core team) there's a standard period of 6 months where the requesting astronomer has exclusive access to the images. He's free to publish (this will generally be done in scientific journals).
After 6 months, the raw data is published via the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes.

For the Early Release Science program (which is scheduled in between the GO program) images are released immediately via MAST. The JWST team will release processed data of these, I don't know how they'll do this.
There's a bunch of people already trawling MAST (about 140,000 observations have been released) processing the images and publishing them everywhere.

[redliox]

What is known about the observations of Alpha Centauri A?  Is it an attempt to search for exoplanets (such as the suspected Neptune in a habitable orbit) or more like a study of the star itself?

[ttle2]

What is known about the observations of Alpha Centauri A?  Is it an attempt to search for exoplanets (such as the suspected Neptune in a habitable orbit) or more like a study of the star itself?

Abstracts of all accepted proposals are publicly available. Here's the one for Alpha Centauri A GO proposal: https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/phase2-public/1618.pdf

[deadman1204]

Beyond the January 2023 date where the first data sets are no longer being embargoed, are there any other dates/events coming up for JWST?

[Citabria]

Isolated from the NIRCam image of the Cartwheel Galaxy, the crazy and wonderful diffraction pattern of a foreground star, showing second-, third-, and higher-order spikes.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/albums/72177720301006030/with/52259483705/

[Oersted]

A bit of light relief...

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/05/europe/scientist-space-image-chorizo-intl-scli-scn/index.html

[Redclaws]

A bit of light relief...

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/05/europe/scientist-space-image-chorizo-intl-scli-scn/index.html

I dunno, chorizo is pretty fatty.

And oh to have a picture of another star anything like that…

[Dalhousie]

A bit of light relief...

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/05/europe/scientist-space-image-chorizo-intl-scli-scn/index.html

Very irresponsible.  Already i have seen comments in the general public that they no longer trust any JWST images because of this.

[libra]

Look, if the general public and Twitter are unable to get a good joke then - screw them all. Social networks confederacy of dunces is quite tiring. Mob mentality, cranked past 11.

[ttle2]

A bit of light relief...

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/05/europe/scientist-space-image-chorizo-intl-scli-scn/index.html

Odd article, since it seems to imply that Étienne Klein created the hoax, while he in fact (very embarrassingly) fell for it himself. The joke was originally by Peter Coles: https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2022/08/03/chorizogate-an-accidental-hoax/

edit: Or maybe more likely, he didn't fall for the prank but stole it without giving any attribution.

[meekGee]

A bit of light relief...

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/08/05/europe/scientist-space-image-chorizo-intl-scli-scn/index.html

Very irresponsible.  Already i have seen comments in the general public that they no longer trust any JWST images because of this.

The general public doesn't trust evolution and climate science either.  The chorizo is not what's causing the problem.

However, the good souls of the world, the very same ones that propagate distrust in science, will no doubt make a big deal out of this to promote their agenda.

Humor is an essential part of life. Don't give it up because there are jackasses in the world. This was extremely over the top, I thought it was hilarious.

NASA should adopt a Chorizo scale when describing magnification and resolution: "This is like obtaining the CRI (Chorizo Reference Image) from a distance of 15 AU!"...


Also what kind of a cave does the French astronomer live in that he can't figure out this is orders of magnitude away from what current instruments do?  I mean, seriously.

[cdebuhr]

[..snip..]
Also what kind of a cave does the French astronomer live in that he can't figure out this is orders of magnitude away from what current instruments do?  I mean, seriously.

Especially this!  A fun exercise for someone less lazy than I: Based on our current best estimate for the angular size on the sky of Proxima Centauri, how big of an aperture would be required to get that resolution at, say, 1000 nm?  I'll bet its a bit bigger than JWST.   Just a little bit ...

[meekGee]

[..snip..]
Also what kind of a cave does the French astronomer live in that he can't figure out this is orders of magnitude away from what current instruments do?  I mean, seriously.

Especially this!  A fun exercise for someone less lazy than I: Based on our current best estimate for the angular size on the sky of Proxima Centauri, how big of an aperture would be required to get that resolution at, say, 1000 nm?  I'll bet its a bit bigger than JWST.   Just a little bit ...

Earth is 1E7 m across?
So the sun is about 1E9 across?
And all stars are alike, so PC is too?
And stars are about 10 ly apart?
And a light yr is 1E16 m because there are piE7 seconds in a year and 3pi is 10

Now if only I could find out how many nm in a m!

Hat tip to XKCD:
https://xkcd.com/2205/

[cdebuhr]

[..snip..]
Also what kind of a cave does the French astronomer live in that he can't figure out this is orders of magnitude away from what current instruments do?  I mean, seriously.

Especially this!  A fun exercise for someone less lazy than I: Based on our current best estimate for the angular size on the sky of Proxima Centauri, how big of an aperture would be required to get that resolution at, say, 1000 nm?  I'll bet its a bit bigger than JWST.   Just a little bit ...

Earth is 1E7 m across?
So the sun is about 1E9 across?
And all stars are alike, so PC is too?
And stars are about 10 ly apart?
And a light yr is 1E16 m because there are piE7 seconds in a year and 3pi is 10

Now if only I could find out how many nm in a m!

Hat tip to XKCD:
https://xkcd.com/2205/

OK!  Using the infallible Angular Resolution Calculator at OmniCalculator: https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/angular-resolution (no, I didn't check the math - its on the internet so it must be correct)

I got ~1 mas for the angular diameter of P Cen from The Internet (thus beyond question), and estimated that the smallest resolvable feature of the star chorizo was about ~1/30 of the total stellar sausage disc (using a NIST certified Mk1 calibrated eyeball).  I put in 1000 nm for wavelength, and got a required aperture of ~7.5 km.

I was right ... that is just a little bit bigger than JWST!

[jebbo]

Odd article, since it seems to imply that Étienne Klein created the hoax, while he in fact (very embarrassingly) fell for it himself. The joke was originally by Peter Coles: https://telescoper.wordpress.com/2022/08/03/chorizogate-an-accidental-hoax/

edit: Or maybe more likely, he didn't fall for the prank but stole it without giving any attribution.

That's the version I saw ... surprisingly I didn't retweet it, but lots of astronomers had fun with it on my timeline.

--- Tony