Baby’s first exoplanet capture. 🍼 @NASAWebb took its first direct image of a planet outside of our solar system, roughly six to 12 times the mass of Jupiter. Peek into future possibilities of studying distant worlds with Webb: https://go.nasa.gov/3RptBBH
NASA’s Webb Takes Its First-Ever Direct Image of Distant Worldhttps://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/09/01/nasas-webb-takes-its-first-ever-direct-image-of-distant-world/
Quote from: deadman1204 on 09/01/2022 03:09 pmNASA’s Webb Takes Its First-Ever Direct Image of Distant Worldhttps://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/09/01/nasas-webb-takes-its-first-ever-direct-image-of-distant-world/When they write, in the blog post, that "The exoplanet is a gas giant, meaning it has no rocky surface and could not be habitable", I feel they are a being a bit too meat-centric. I mean, it is not inconceivable that some kind of intelligent life could evolve on a gas giant, with communication not based on slapping bits of meat together.... https://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/thinkingMeat.html...But, OK, the planet is only 15-20 million years old, so I guess that is a big constraint...
We've now seen incredible #JWST data for 2 transiting planets. But it's even more amazing to think that, from now until ~2042 we will be getting new #JWST data for an exoplanet roughly every week. This plot from @super_knova shows observations in Cycle 1 alone. It's revolutionary
But a new MIT study suggests that the tools astronomers typically use to decode light-based signals may not be good enough to accurately interpret the new telescope’s data. Specifically, opacity models — the tools that model how light interacts with matter as a function of the matter’s properties — may need significant retuning in order to match the precision of JWST data, the researchers say.If these models are not refined? The researchers predict that properties of planetary atmospheres, such as their temperature, pressure, and elemental composition, could be off by an order of magnitude.“There is a scientifically significant difference between a compound like water being present at 5 percent versus 25 percent, which current models cannot differentiate,” says study co-leader Julien de Wit, assistant professor in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences (EAPS).“Currently, the model we use to decrypt spectral information is not up to par with the precision and quality of data we have from the James Webb telescope,” adds EAPS graduate student Prajwal Niraula. “We need to up our game and tackle together the opacity problem.”De Wit, Niraula, and their colleagues have published their study today in Nature Astronomy. Co-authors include spectroscopy experts Iouli Gordon, Robert Hargreaves, Clara Sousa-Silva, and Roman Kochanov of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
He and his colleagues raise some ideas for how to improve existing opacity models, including the need for more laboratory measurements and theoretical calculations to refine the models’ assumptions of how light and various molecules interact, as well as collaborations across disciplines, and in particular, between astronomy and spectroscopy.“In order to reliably interpret spectra from the diverse exoplanetary atmospheres, we need an extensive campaign for new accurate measurements and calculations of relevant molecular spectroscopic parameters,” says study co-author Iouli Gordon, a physicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. “These parameters will need to be timely implemented into reference spectroscopic databases and consequently models used by astronomers."“There is so much that could be done if we knew perfectly how light and matter interact,” Niraula adds. “We know that well enough around the Earth’s conditions, but as soon as we move to different types of atmospheres, things change, and that’s a lot of data, with increasing quality, that we risk misinterpreting.”
JWST is so stable and sensitive that it can not only detect transits of exoplanets in front of stars, it can detect the decrease when the planet goes BEHIND the star and you can't see the reflected light from the planet. 🤯
If the MIRI filter wheel is something they can't do anything about, would they just use it until it breaks, assuming potential breakage wasn't a threat to other stuff?
Quote from: Nomadd on 09/22/2022 03:51 pm If the MIRI filter wheel is something they can't do anything about, would they just use it until it breaks, assuming potential breakage wasn't a threat to other stuff?'use it until it breaks' means the filter wheel can get stuck in any position, and that's the only filter that can be used for all MIRI observations from then on. I suspect they would want to move the filter wheel to a neutral position instead, which gives them more options (makes all filters on the other filter wheel available).
Should Webb telescope’s data be open to all?Quote from: ScienceThe $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been observing for less than 4 months, but already a storm is brewing over access to its data. Webb images and spectra all end up in an archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, yet most of them aren’t freely available until 1 year after the data were collected. This gives the researchers who proposed the observations time to analyze them and publish results without being scooped.But some astronomers question the practice, arguing that data from federally funded projects should be free for all to use. NASA, Webb’s primary backer, is facing an open data push from the White House and may soon end the restriction. Having so much Webb data locked away “doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s just not right,” says astronomer Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who from 2009 to 2017 chaired a committee advising STScI on Webb’s future science operations.
The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been observing for less than 4 months, but already a storm is brewing over access to its data. Webb images and spectra all end up in an archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, yet most of them aren’t freely available until 1 year after the data were collected. This gives the researchers who proposed the observations time to analyze them and publish results without being scooped.But some astronomers question the practice, arguing that data from federally funded projects should be free for all to use. NASA, Webb’s primary backer, is facing an open data push from the White House and may soon end the restriction. Having so much Webb data locked away “doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s just not right,” says astronomer Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who from 2009 to 2017 chaired a committee advising STScI on Webb’s future science operations.
Quote from: su27k on 11/07/2022 01:32 amShould Webb telescope’s data be open to all?Quote from: ScienceThe $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been observing for less than 4 months, but already a storm is brewing over access to its data. Webb images and spectra all end up in an archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, yet most of them aren’t freely available until 1 year after the data were collected. This gives the researchers who proposed the observations time to analyze them and publish results without being scooped.But some astronomers question the practice, arguing that data from federally funded projects should be free for all to use. NASA, Webb’s primary backer, is facing an open data push from the White House and may soon end the restriction. Having so much Webb data locked away “doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s just not right,” says astronomer Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who from 2009 to 2017 chaired a committee advising STScI on Webb’s future science operations.No, this is a horrible idea that will hurt the quality of work done. The data also become fully and freely available after a year. However, these scientists put in HUGE amounts of work to design and create their proposals and observations, and everything involved. They should get first pick at the data. This isn't just spending 5 minutes picking what you're gonna point the telescope it. Its months to years of work, You cannot correlate this to the journal issue, because federal research published in journals is permanently locked behind a paywall. JWST data is only embargoed for like a year. The two issues are not at all alike.
Quote from: deadman1204 on 11/07/2022 03:06 pmQuote from: su27k on 11/07/2022 01:32 amShould Webb telescope’s data be open to all?Quote from: ScienceThe $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been observing for less than 4 months, but already a storm is brewing over access to its data. Webb images and spectra all end up in an archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, yet most of them aren’t freely available until 1 year after the data were collected. This gives the researchers who proposed the observations time to analyze them and publish results without being scooped.But some astronomers question the practice, arguing that data from federally funded projects should be free for all to use. NASA, Webb’s primary backer, is facing an open data push from the White House and may soon end the restriction. Having so much Webb data locked away “doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s just not right,” says astronomer Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who from 2009 to 2017 chaired a committee advising STScI on Webb’s future science operations.No, this is a horrible idea that will hurt the quality of work done. The data also become fully and freely available after a year. However, these scientists put in HUGE amounts of work to design and create their proposals and observations, and everything involved. They should get first pick at the data. This isn't just spending 5 minutes picking what you're gonna point the telescope it. Its months to years of work, You cannot correlate this to the journal issue, because federal research published in journals is permanently locked behind a paywall. JWST data is only embargoed for like a year. The two issues are not at all alike.Wrong on all counts. Starting with posting discussion in an Updates thread.
Quote from: Robotbeat on 11/07/2022 03:16 pmQuote from: deadman1204 on 11/07/2022 03:06 pmQuote from: su27k on 11/07/2022 01:32 amShould Webb telescope’s data be open to all?Quote from: ScienceThe $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been observing for less than 4 months, but already a storm is brewing over access to its data. Webb images and spectra all end up in an archive at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, yet most of them aren’t freely available until 1 year after the data were collected. This gives the researchers who proposed the observations time to analyze them and publish results without being scooped.But some astronomers question the practice, arguing that data from federally funded projects should be free for all to use. NASA, Webb’s primary backer, is facing an open data push from the White House and may soon end the restriction. Having so much Webb data locked away “doesn’t pass the smell test. It’s just not right,” says astronomer Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who from 2009 to 2017 chaired a committee advising STScI on Webb’s future science operations.No, this is a horrible idea that will hurt the quality of work done. The data also become fully and freely available after a year. However, these scientists put in HUGE amounts of work to design and create their proposals and observations, and everything involved. They should get first pick at the data. This isn't just spending 5 minutes picking what you're gonna point the telescope it. Its months to years of work, You cannot correlate this to the journal issue, because federal research published in journals is permanently locked behind a paywall. JWST data is only embargoed for like a year. The two issues are not at all alike.Wrong on all counts. Starting with posting discussion in an Updates thread.The initial comment was not an update, nor is yours (neither of which you take issue with). This is just gatekeeping.
After often-heated debate, the Webb advisory committee that Illingworth chaired before the telescope’s launch urged that its proprietary period last just 6 months. Any longer, the committee concluded, and most of the data collected during the first year of observing, known as cycle 1, would be unavailable to astronomers trying to plan what to look for in cycle 2, or even some of cycle 3. For a mission then expected to only last 5 years, that was unsupportable in the view of some committee members.
No, this is a horrible idea that will hurt the quality of work done. The data also become fully and freely available after a year. However, these scientists put in HUGE amounts of work to design and create their proposals and observations, and everything involved. They should get first pick at the data. This isn't just spending 5 minutes picking what you're gonna point the telescope it. Its months to years of work,
Quote from: deadman1204 on 11/07/2022 03:06 pmNo, this is a horrible idea that will hurt the quality of work done. The data also become fully and freely available after a year. However, these scientists put in HUGE amounts of work to design and create their proposals and observations, and everything involved. They should get first pick at the data. This isn't just spending 5 minutes picking what you're gonna point the telescope it. Its months to years of work, It can be. In other cases, the suggestion is obvious and anyone in the field would have proposed it when asked "what should we do with this big IR bucket?" I think the mistake is having a one-size-fits-all embargo, whether it's 12 months or something else. It should depend on the specifics of the proposal, the type of data being acquired. Sometimes it's just acquiring samples of a type, where early publishing increases science by allowing many eyes and minds to find many stories to tell. In other cases, it's very specific to the work of the proponents, the culmination of their prior work to prove that the specific observation will serve the result.
