James Webb Telescope Updates

Halbhh · Jul 14, 2022

loveofourlord said:
my response to the issue of lack of signals is, we can really only look for Radio signals, if there is more advanced communications especially anything faster then light, we would have a hard enough time detecting let alone knowing how to read.

While in science fiction being contacted by an advanced many world race can turn out pretty bad, as Earth is a very pleasant world it would seem, and would be coveted....and evolution/survival of the fittest is pretty often, to simplify, that the strong eat the weak.

Myself, I don't think there are going to be advanced technology alien races actually. But I'd be completely unsurprised if there is a lot of elementary simple life out there which isn't able to communicate into space. Even perhaps there could be alien life that is evolved more, but I'd still doubt something even slightly like us, with spacefaring ability. Just my view. I lay out more about why in post #2 here: When Webb sees Oxygen and Water, perhaps methane on exoplanets...

So far as the typical general ideas why we don't see any alien races trying to communicate, that's the old Fermi Paradox and the hypothetical answers to it. The answers have gotten better over the years. (I remember when they were less sophisticated, and miss obvious stuff like "what about alien races simply destroy themselves" which was a question that came to me early on)

So, today, the hypothetical answers are better, more comprehensive, even if they are all beside the point in my view today.

e.g. -- "It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself" being one of those possible answers to the Fermi Paradox.
Fermi paradox - Wikipedia

In the film "Arrival" aliens do visit but are so extremely unlike us it's almost much impossible to communicate with them early on, which is fun as a short story, given we've had so much fiction about aliens for so long. They turn out to be very radically different in a fun SF way. (but the film is more much fantasy than hard SF really)

loveofourlord · Jul 14, 2022

Halbhh said:
While in science fiction being contacted by an advanced many world race can turn out pretty bad, as Earth is a very pleasant world it would seem, and would be coveted....and evolution/survival of the fittest is pretty often, to simplify, that the strong eat the weak.

Myself, I don't think there are going to be advanced technology alien races actually. But I'd be completely unsurprised if there is a lot of elementary simple life out there which isn't able to communicate into space. Even perhaps there could be alien life that is evolved more, but I'd still doubt something even slightly like us, with spacefaring ability. Just my view. I lay out more about why in post #2 here: When Webb sees Oxygen and Water, perhaps methane on exoplanets...

So far as the typical general ideas why we don't see any alien races trying to communicate, that's the old Fermi Paradox and the hypothetical answers to it. The answers have gotten better over the years. (I remember when they were less sophisticated, and miss obvious stuff like "what about alien races simply destroy themselves" which was a question that came to me early on)

So, today, the hypothetical answers are better, more comprehensive, even if they are all beside the point in my view today.

e.g. -- "It is the nature of intelligent life to destroy itself" being one of those possible answers to the Fermi Paradox.
Fermi paradox - Wikipedia

In the film "Arrival" aliens do visit but are so extremely unlike us it's almost much impossible to communicate with them early on, which is fun as a short story, given we've had so much fiction about aliens for so long. They turn out to be very radically different in a fun SF way. (but the film is more much fantasy than hard SF really)

yeah I think that life is everywhere in the universe but you have so many things that have to work to reach our level and beyond.

Need planet that can support life
planet that lives long enough to have higher life
planet that lasts long enough to have intelligence but can use it. You could have the most intelligent life in the universe on Europa, but due to the planets nature it's unlikely to ever get advanced technology
then the one you mentioned can't kill itself off and THEN maybe you can get life.

Other thing about space tech, if say it takes 200 years to go from radio to FTL technology,the window where you CAN pick up signals from other planets is small.

Something I also read is that our radio signals are reaching if not already hit the limit of being pickupable. As the signals much further would be too faint, hence the looking for carrier signals.

SelfSim · Jul 14, 2022

loveofourlord said:
yeah I think that life is everywhere in the universe but you have so many things that have to work to reach our level and beyond.

Need planet that can support life
planet that lives long enough to have higher life
planet that lasts long enough to have intelligence but can use it. You could have the most intelligent life in the universe on Europa, but due to the planets nature it's unlikely to ever get advanced technology
then the one you mentioned can't kill itself off and THEN maybe you can get life.

Other thing about space tech, if say it takes 200 years to go from radio to FTL technology,the window where you CAN pick up signals from other planets is small.

Something I also read is that our radio signals are reaching if not already hit the limit of being pickupable. As the signals much further would be too faint, hence the looking for carrier signals.

Fyi, and coming back to the Webb's view of the astrophysical parameters (which narrows the potential SETI target list):
Using the transit observation method to characterise exoplanet atmospheres and thereby search for life, an exoplanet’s orbit must be aligned with our line of sight to observe a transit. So, the question arises:
'From which stellar vantage points would a distant observer be able to search for life on Earth in the same way?'

We identified the closest stars within 100 parsec – 326 lightyears -- with a vantage point to see our Earth as an exoplanet transiting the Sun. We obtained reliable stellar parameters for these 1,004 main sequence stars through the TESS Input Catalog using high quality GAIA DR2 data flags.

Of those,

508 guarantee a minimum 10-hour long observation of Earth’s transit. Our star list consists of about 77% M-type, 12% K-type, 6% G-type, 4% F- type stars, and 1% A-type stars close to the ecliptic. SETI searches like the Breakthrough Listen Initiative are already focusing on this part of the sky.

(As at 2020, more than approximately 3,000 transiting exoplanets (total) had been detected).

What this shows, is how the Webb observations could potentially assist SETI in focussing their radio searches on stellar target systems where Webb's physical transit method evidence can potentially support any declarations SETI may want to announce, based on their own signal detections.

This tends to substitute the need for reliance on woo about the existence of intelligent aliens, with where they could live and thence feasibly direct their signals towards us. This would also help to remove/reduce the potential of naturally generated space-originating signals, from the SETI detected radio spectrum.

loveofourlord · Jul 16, 2022

Sorry guys Nasa was caught lying hehe :> saw this and had to post it heh.

sjastro · Jul 16, 2022

Astronomers despite being vilified on this site by a few individuals are basically nice people allowing raw data to be made available to other scientists and the general public.
In the same vein NASA have made available the JWST data to the general public allowing rank amateurs like myself to process into images.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jul 18, 2022

loveofourlord said:
ahhh thanks, in a discussion over if those were stars or galaxies I realized YES they were stars, but brought up the question of how big of a patch of sky was it.

The ones with the 6 pointed star-shaped diffraction pattern are stars, the rest are galaxies.

essentialsaltes · Jul 19, 2022

James Webb Space Telescope picture shows noticeable [not fatal] damage from micrometeoroid strike

A micrometeoroid struck the James Webb Space Telescope between May 22 and 24, impacting one of the observatory's 18 hexagonal golden mirrors. NASA had disclosed the micrometeoroid strike in June and noted that the debris was more sizeable than pre-launch modeling had accounted for. Now, scientists on the mission have shared an image that drives home the severity of the blow in a report(opens in new tab) released July 12 describing what scientists on the mission learned about using the observatory during its first six months in space.

loveofourlord · Jul 19, 2022

essentialsaltes said:
James Webb Space Telescope picture shows noticeable [not fatal] damage from micrometeoroid strike

A micrometeoroid struck the James Webb Space Telescope between May 22 and 24, impacting one of the observatory's 18 hexagonal golden mirrors. NASA had disclosed the micrometeoroid strike in June and noted that the debris was more sizeable than pre-launch modeling had accounted for. Now, scientists on the mission have shared an image that drives home the severity of the blow in a report(opens in new tab) released July 12 describing what scientists on the mission learned about using the observatory during its first six months in space.

I heard about this when it happened now the big question is is this a fluke or just something that will happen more often due to where it is.

SelfSim · Jul 19, 2022

I read somewhere that the useful life expectancy of the Webb, was a mere five years.
We may experience the fallout if it doesn't achieve that target .. (Fingers crossed that it does).

SelfSim · Jul 19, 2022

From the report, on the general life expectancy of Webb:

At this point, it is not clear what will determine the duration of JWST’s mission. The mirrors and sunshield are expected to slowly degrade from micrometeoroid impacts; the detectors are expected to experience cumulative slow damage from charged particles; the sunshield and multilayer insulation will degrade from space weathering; the spacecraft was designed for a five year mission (as is standard for NASA science missions); and the science instruments include many moving parts at cryogenic temperatures.
These sources of degradation were all taken into account in the design of JWST, with performance margins set so that JWST will still perform after many years of operation.
At present, the largest source of uncertainty is long term effects of micrometeoroid impacts that slowly degrade the primary mirror. As discussed in Section 4.6, the single micrometeorite impact that occurred between 22—24 May 2022 UT exceeded prelaunch expectations of damage for a single micrometeoroid3, triggering further investigation and modeling by the JWST Project. The Project is actively working this issue to ensure a long, productive science mission with JWST.

SelfSim · Jul 19, 2022

On the micrometeorite damage aspect:

The impact raised the wavefront error of segment C3 from 56 to 280 nm rms. Mirror commanding to adjust segment position and curvature reduced this error to 178 nm rms. This, after dividing by area and adding in quadrature to the other sources of WFE in the telescope, results in ~9 nm rms increase to the total telescope wavefront error.

On the impact to the overall observation platform performance:

Further, the telescope WFE combines with the science instrument WFE to yield total observatory levels in the range 70-130 nm (see Table 2), so the slight increase to telescope WFE from this strike has a relatively smaller effect on total observatory WFE.

On looking into the possibility of future similar damage:

It is not yet clear whether the May 2022 hit to segment C3 was a rare event (i.e. an unlucky early strike by a high kinetic energy micrometeoroid that statistically might occur only once in several years), or whether the telescope may be more susceptible to damage by micrometeoroids than pre-launch modeling predicted. The project team is conducting additional investigations into the micrometeoroid population, how impacts affect beryllium mirrors, and the efficacy and efficiency tradeoffs of potential mitigations such as pointing restrictions that would minimize time spent looking in the direction of orbital motion, which statistically has higher micrometeoroid rates and energies.

FrumiousBandersnatch · Jul 19, 2022

loveofourlord said:
I heard about this when it happened now the big question is is this a fluke or just something that will happen more often due to where it is.

They have a pretty good idea of the risks at L2 since "There are already several satellites in the L2 orbit, including the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe, and the Herschel and Planck space observatories."

sjastro · Jul 19, 2022

The JWST image of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 shows indications of the intracluster medium which is a superheated plasma permeating the cluster and causes gravitational lensing of the background galaxies.
The medium emits high energy photons in the x-ray range but since the cluster is 4.6 billion light years away the photons are redshifted into the infrared range.

This is the NASA image of the cluster.

This is my process of the data to bring out more detail in the intracluster medium.

sjastro · Jul 20, 2022

sjastro said:
The JWST image of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 shows indications of the intracluster medium which is a superheated plasma permeating the cluster and causes gravitational lensing of the background galaxies.
The medium emits high energy photons in the x-ray range but since the cluster is 4.6 billion light years away the photons are redshifted into the infrared range.

This is the NASA image of the cluster.
View attachment 318729

This is my process of the data to bring out more detail in the intracluster medium.
View attachment 318734

The loop like structure at 2 o'clock in my processed image looked suspiciously like a dust donut but is a real feature as astronomers have further enhanced the image.

Nathan Adams said:
Some eagle eyed people will have seen the intra-cluster light is very bright! Turning up the contrast we can see some structures in the ICL including some sort of loop or void in the top right of this image.

Not a pretty picture unlike like the JWST release which has a wow factor for public consumption; astronomers deal with far more mundane images which emphasize detail.

Gene2memE · Jul 22, 2022

Halbhh said:
While in science fiction being contacted by an advanced many world race can turn out pretty bad, as Earth is a very pleasant world it would seem, and would be coveted....and evolution/survival of the fittest is pretty often, to simplify, that the strong eat the weak.

That's simplified to the point of total wrongness. Evolution is about heritable changes in populations. Survival of the fittest means a species has greater reproductive success thanks to its adaptations to its environment. It doesn't matter how strong (or weak) a species is, what matters is how well it survives and reproduces. Tardigrades and jellyfish are more 'fit' than pandas or gorillas.

As to the Fermi paradox, I think its a combination of scarcity, distance and time.

Intelligent life may be very uncommon in the galaxy. Intelligent life physically close enough to be detected may be rarer still. Intelligent life that is both close enough to detect it and overlapping in time with our ability to detect it likely even rarer still.

When you start considering the vast distances and time scales involved, and other stuff like signal attenuation, the Fermi paradox really isn't that paradoxical - statistically speaking. Here's a neat break-down: A Probabilistic Analysis of the Fermi Paradox

loveofourlord · Jul 22, 2022

Gene2memE said:
That's simplified to the point of total wrongness. Evolution is about heritable changes in populations. Survival of the fittest means a species has greater reproductive success thanks to its adaptations to its environment. It doesn't matter how strong (or weak) a species is, what matters is how well it survives and reproduces. Tardigrades and jellyfish are more 'fit' than pandas or gorillas.

As to the Fermi paradox, I think its a combination of scarcity, distance and time.

Intelligent life may be very uncommon in the galaxy. Intelligent life physically close enough to be detected may be rarer still. Intelligent life that is both close enough to detect it and overlapping in time with our ability to detect it likely even rarer still.

When you start considering the vast distances and time scales involved, and other stuff like signal attenuation, the Fermi paradox really isn't that paradoxical - statistically speaking. Here's a neat break-down: A Probabilistic Analysis of the Fermi Paradox

like my comment on the reason Setti hasn't found signs of life, even if civilizations don't die out, their technology might advance to where we can't detect their signals as they are using some far more advanced method, meaning might only be 2-300 years where we can detect them at our level. The sky could be infinetly full of signals from civilizations, but we have a hard time detecting them let alone realizing they are signals

SelfSim · Jul 22, 2022

Webb telescope may have already found most distant known galaxy:

Just a week after its first images were shown to the world, the James Webb Space Telescope may have found a galaxy that existed 13.5 billion years ago, a scientist who analyzed the data said Wednesday.
Known as GLASS-z13, the galaxy dates back to 300 million years after the Big Bang, about 100 million years earlier than anything previously identified, Rohan Naidu of the Harvard Center for Astrophysics told AFP.

"We're potentially looking at the most distant starlight that anyone has ever seen," he said.

Still some uncertainties on that distance however .. and some surprises:

"Right now, our guess for the distance is based on what we don't see—it would be great to have an answer for what we do see," said Naidu.

Already, however, the team have detected surprising properties.

For instance, the galaxy is the mass of a billion Suns, which is "potentially very surprising, and that is something we don't really understand" given how soon after the Big Bang it formed, Naidu said.

sjastro · Jul 22, 2022

A couple more images from Webb and a comparison with Hubble.
In both cases the galaxy's dust structure is revealed in the Webb images.

loveofourlord · Jul 22, 2022

sjastro said:
A couple more images from Webb and a comparison with Hubble.
In both cases the galaxy's dust structure is revealed in the Webb images.

View attachment 319000

View attachment 319001

First thought fractals.

SelfSim · Jul 22, 2022

loveofourlord said:
First thought fractals.

Why?

James Webb Telescope Updates

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