Perhaps the greatest and most frustrating mystery in cosmology is the Hubble tension problem. Put simply, all the observational evidence we have points to a Universe that began in a hot, dense state, and then expanded at an ever-increasing rate to become the Universe we see today. Every measurement of that expansion agrees with this, but where they don’t agree is on what that rate exactly is. We can measure expansion in lots of different ways, and while they are in the same general ballpark, their uncertainties are so small now that they don’t overlap. There is no value for the Hubble parameter that falls within the uncertainty of all measurements, hence the problem.
Continue reading “Astronomers Rule Out One Explanation for the Hubble Tension”Webb Blocks the Star to See a Debris Disk Around Beta Pictoris
You think you know someone, then you see them in a slightly different way and BAM, they surprise you. I’m not talking about other people of course, I’m talking about a fabulous star that has been studied and imaged a gazillion times. Beta Pictoris has been revealed by many telescopes, even Hubble to be home to the most amazing disk. Enter James Webb Space Telescopd and WALLOP, with its increased sensitivty and instrumentation a new, exciting feature emerges.
Continue reading “Webb Blocks the Star to See a Debris Disk Around Beta Pictoris”GJ 367b is Another Dead World Orbiting a Red Dwarf
Red dwarf exoplanet habitability is a hot topic in space science. These small dim stars host lots of exoplanets, including small rocky ones the size of Earth. But the little stars emit extremely powerful flares that can damage and strip away atmospheres.
If we’re ever going to understand red dwarf habitability, we need to understand the atmospheres of the exoplanets that orbit them.
Continue reading “GJ 367b is Another Dead World Orbiting a Red Dwarf”The Early Universe Was Surprisingly Filled With Spiral Galaxies
If we could travel far beyond our galaxy, and look back upon the Milky Way, it would be a glorious sight. Luminous spirals stretching from a central core, with dust and nebulae scattered along the spiral edges. When you think about a galaxy, you probably imagine a spiral galaxy like the Milky Way, but spirals make up only about 60% of the galaxies we see. That’s because spiral galaxies only form when smaller galaxies collide and merge over time. Or so we thought, as a new study suggests that isn’t the case.
Continue reading “The Early Universe Was Surprisingly Filled With Spiral Galaxies”Webb Sees a Supernova Go Off in a Gravitationally Lensed Galaxy – for the Second Time
Nature, in its infinite inventiveness, provides natural astronomical lenses that allow us to see objects beyond the normal reach of our telescopes. They’re called gravitational lenses, and a few years ago, the Hubble Space Telescope took advantage of one of them to spot a supernova explosion in a distant galaxy.
Now, the JWST has taken advantage of the same lens and found another supernova in the same galaxy.
Continue reading “Webb Sees a Supernova Go Off in a Gravitationally Lensed Galaxy – for the Second Time”Can Webb Find the First Stars in the Universe?
The Universe’s very first stars had an important job. They formed from the primordial elements created by the Big Bang, so they contained no metals. It was up to them to synthesize the first metals and spread them out into the nearby Universe.
The JWST has made some progress in finding the Universe’s earliest galaxies. Can it have the same success when searching for the first stars?
Continue reading “Can Webb Find the First Stars in the Universe?”What’s the Source of Binary Rogue Planets?
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is already making great strides in helping us to unravel the mysteries of the Universe. Earlier this year, hundreds of rogue planets were discovered in the Orion Nebula. The real surprise to this discovery was that 9% of the planets were paired up in wide binary pairs. To understand how this binary planets formed, astronomers simulated various scenarios for their formation.
Continue reading “What’s the Source of Binary Rogue Planets?”JWST Delivers A Fantastic New Image Of Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A
Astronomy is all about light. Sensing the tiniest amounts of it, filtering it, splitting it into its component wavelengths, and making sense of it, especially from objects a great distance away. The James Webb Space Telescope is especially adept at this, as this new image of supernova remnant (SNR) Cassiopeia A exemplifies so well.
Continue reading “JWST Delivers A Fantastic New Image Of Supernova Remnant Cassiopeia A”JWST Reveals a Newly-Forming Double Protostar
As our newest, most perceptive eye on the ongoing unfolding of the cosmos, the James Webb Space Telescope is revealing many things that were previously unseeable. One of the space telescope’s science goals is to expand our understanding of how stars form. The JWST has the power to see into the cocoons of gas and dust that hide young protostars.
It peered inside one of these cocoons and showed us that what we thought was a single star is actually a binary star.
Continue reading “JWST Reveals a Newly-Forming Double Protostar”Adolescent Galaxies are Incandescent and Contain Unexpected Elements
If the Universe has adolescent galaxies, they’re the ones that formed about 2 to 3 billion years after the Big Bang. New research based on the James Webb Space Telescope shows that these teenage galaxies are unusually hot. Not only that, but they contain some unexpected chemical elements. The most surprising element found in these galaxies is nickel.
Continue reading “Adolescent Galaxies are Incandescent and Contain Unexpected Elements”