James Webb Telescope Updates

[loveofourlord]

Why?

thats what they look like?

 

[SelfSim]

thats what they look like?

Which parts/features remind you of fractals?

 

[loveofourlord]

Which parts/features remind you of fractals?

The repeating pattern spiraling into the infinite hehe

Kinda like this one

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... 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.

The strong do eat the weak, but it turns out that evolution is as much, if not more, about cooperation than competition. Multicellularity and endosymbiosis are good examples.

 

[Halbhh]

The strong do eat the weak, but it turns out that evolution is as much, if not more, about cooperation than competition. Multicellularity and endosymbiosis are good examples.

Yeah, that's even more grist for sci fi horror films. ;-)

Having pointed out one main evolutionary tendency of a invading spieces replacing native fauna (like us), another reasonable possibility is that the cooperative ability that allows us to go into space also creates a possibility of treating a new to us alien world's advanced fauna as valuable in itself. But....look at how we are endangering advanced Earth fauna...

 

[Halbhh]

If confirmed, a redshift of 20 is quite a find...

(turning on captions may help at certain points)

 

[SelfSim]

I may have fallen for all this myself amongst all the Webb excitement, so its well worth keeping the following in mind when reading the headlines:
Is the James Webb Space Telescope finding the furthest, oldest, youngest or first galaxies? An astronomer explains

So headlines might say things like: 'Webb has found the oldest galaxies we have ever seen' .. but that statement is very misleading:

While these very distant galaxies have been advertised as the "oldest galaxies," I find this a little confusing. We are actually seeing these galaxies as they appeared when they were very young, perhaps a hundred million years old or so.

.. ok .. however;

It is true that these galaxies will be old now, but our own Milky Way galaxy is very old now too. While our Sun is 4.56 billion years old, many stars in our galaxy are 10 billion years old and some stars in the Milky Way are 13 billion years old.

and so:

James Webb is seeing the earliest galaxies yet observed—some of the first galaxies that formed soon after the Big Bang.

So should they shouldn't be calling these galaxies 'young' or 'old' .. rather, more like what Webb is seeing is earliest ones, eh?

Worthwhile keeping that in mind, IMO.

 

[Halbhh]

I may have fallen for all this myself amongst all the Webb excitement, so its well worth keeping the following in mind when reading the headlines:
Is the James Webb Space Telescope finding the furthest, oldest, youngest or first galaxies? An astronomer explains

So headlines might say things like: 'Webb has found the oldest galaxies we have ever seen' .. but that statement is very misleading:
.. ok .. however;
and so:
So should they shouldn't be calling these galaxies 'young' or 'old' .. rather, more like what Webb is seeing is earliest ones, eh?

Worthwhile keeping that in mind, IMO.

Yes (this is so basic to me, I don't think to mention it, so thanks for adding that note).

You might like this, to get a feel for the significance of the recent observations:
First Galaxies Born Sooner After Big Bang Than Thought

If there is a redshift 20 galaxy (further analysis will look to confirm), and if we then end up getting more, and even earlier, then that's really something, wonderful, and cosmologists will have to rethink how and when the first galaxies formed, and not just by a small adjustment, but to trash the old theories.

What had been the mainstream view for a while:
"Observations by Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based instruments show that the first galaxies took shape as little as one billion years after the Big Bang...."

So, that's already proven pretty far wrong. Galaxies formed much earlier than that. Not merely like 400 million years, but much earlier even than that.... It's a fun time.

 

[SelfSim]

... You might like this, to get a feel for the significance of the recent observations:
First Galaxies Born Sooner After Big Bang Than Thought

If there is a redshift 20 galaxy (further analysis will look to confirm), and if we then end up getting more, and even earlier, then that's really something, wonderful, and cosmologists will have to rethink how and when the first galaxies formed, and not just by a small adjustment, but to trash the old theories.

What had been the mainstream view for a while:
"Observations by Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based instruments show that the first galaxies took shape as little as one billion years after the Big Bang...."

So, that's already proven pretty far wrong. Galaxies formed much earlier than that. Not merely like 400 million years, but much earlier even than that.... It's a fun time.

...

If there is a redshift 20 galaxy (further analysis will look to confirm)
..
So, that's already proven pretty far wrong. Galaxies formed much earlier than that.

Meh .. we'll see .. no use jumping to speculative conclusions.
The lower limit has always been tentative/uncertain.

 

[Halbhh]

...
Meh .. we'll see .. no use jumping to speculative conclusions.
The lower limit has always been tentative/uncertain.

What?

Notice the words "If" and "confirm":

If there is a redshift 20 galaxy (further analysis will look to confirm)

So, yes, I think you should emulate me here, and not to jump to a conclusion, lol.

But, also, one should not put their head in the sand either. We shouldn't act like we didn't notice this radical new data, which is going to be analyzed more.

While we already knew stars had probably formed around time 200 million years or so, that's not the same as galaxies big enough to observe with our telescopes being in existence at that time (200m year mark)... (sure the definition of a 'galaxy' could be a nitpicky thing for someone with Asperger's perhaps -- isn't a star cluster sorta a galaxy of a sort? -- but what the rest of us mean is when the grouping of stars is big enough (enough stars close enough together) -- light intense enough -- for us to see it with our most advanced telescopes and techniques).

Why it matters: the mainstream views were that larger enough star groupings to see (what we call galaxies basically: they are big enough (millions to billions of stars) to see at vast distance, unlike little star clusters) -- we though those would take longer to form than just 200m years, because there has to be something to pull them together so soon, and that has to do with theories about dark matter clumping and ordinary matter clumping, etc.

So, it will be highly significant if we learn that (observable) galaxies are definitely formed in only 200m years from the big bang. That's...well, if you've read enough astronomy articles over the decades, let's just say...it would be quite something.

But old views/theories (there are normally many competing theories (view), but some are the most widely thought and what you'd find repeated most often and answered by most astronomers...) -- they get routinely smashed in astronomy.

But, it's normal for mainstream viewpoints (the most widely thought ideas) to go into the trash can every now and then, in cosmology/astronomy.


Best of times, for astronomy. It's going to be interesting.

 

[SelfSim]

Re @Astrophile's previous two post 'ratings' there: I agree with them!
Cheers

 

[Halbhh]

I'm not sure Astrophile posted in this thread, but I'm glad you agreed with him, if in some other thread.

 

[Halbhh]

JWST just made an amazing image of the Cartwheel Galaxy, so first, here's Hubble's image:

Hubble Telescope, 2018:

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2018/hubble-s-cartwheel

 

[Halbhh]

Here's the new image from JWST:

(can click to zoom in)
JWST, 2022
(In this near- and mid-infrared composite image, MIRI data are colored red while NIRCam data are colored blue, orange, and yellow.)

https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/webb-captures-stellar-gymnastics-in-the-cartwheel-galaxy

 

[Halbhh]

Notice how in the JWST image, so many extra galaxies are visible!

The Cartwheel, located about 500 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Sculptor in the southern sky, is a rather rare type of galaxy that astronomers call a ring galaxy. Scientists believe that long ago, the Cartwheel was a common spiral galaxy, similar to our Milky Way. Then, about 700 to 800 million light-years ago, it collided with a smaller galaxy.

The crash altered its shape and structure to what astronomers can see today, forming two ring-like structures, one surrounding the galactic center and another framing the entire galaxy. The two rings expand outward from the galaxy's center like "ripples in a pond," the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which operates Webb and is based in Maryland, said in a statement.

As the outer ring expands, it pushes outward the dust and gas that surrounds the galaxy and triggers star formation, according to STScI. The areas where new stars are being born appear as small blue dots in the image and are scattered throughout the galaxy, but especially concentrated in the outer ring.
(Continues, has 2 minute video also)
Stunning James Webb Space Telescope image shows stars forming in strange wheel-shaped galaxy

 

[SelfSim]

I'm not sure Astrophile posted in this thread, but I'm glad you agreed with him, if in some other thread.

He 'rated' our posts #109 and #110. (I'll change my wording in #111 as a clarification, if you like).

 

[SelfSim]

News reports today:
James Webb captures most distant star ever seen in incredible detail:
WHL0137-LS known as 'Earendel' .. redshift 6.2 +/- 0.1, (comoving: 28 billion light years distant)

WHL0137-LS, also known as Earendel, is a star in the constellation of Cetus. Discovered in 2022 by the Hubble Space Telescope, it is the earliest and most distant known star, at a comoving distance of 28 billion light-years (8.6 billion parsecs). The previous farthest known star, MACS J1149 Lensed Star 1, a.k.a. Icarus, at a comoving distance of 14.4 billion light-years (4.4 billion parsecs), was discovered by Hubble in 2018.

 

[Halbhh]

News reports today:
James Webb captures most distant star ever seen in incredible detail:
WHL0137-LS known as 'Earendel' .. redshift 6.2 +/- 0.1, (comoving: 28 billion light years distant)


View attachment 319384

Interestingly, the estimated mass of 50-100 solar masses (the mass of our own sun as the unit = 1) means this isn't even among the largest stars, though quite large. Stars over 200 masses of the sun have been found, so there is a chance eventually an even earlier (thus more distant) star of greater mass (thus intrinsically brighter) and also magnified enough to see could be found. But, this is such a fun find regardless.

March 2022, Hubble data (*): "As observed, Earendel is likely to have a mass of between 50 and 100 solar masses,[16] and an effective surface temperature of at least 20,000 K (20,000 °C; 36,000 °F).[1] Stars this large usually explode as a supernova just a few million years after forming.[a][16][17]Although unlikely, Earendel has a small probability of being a population III star, meaning it contains almost no elements other than primordial hydrogen and helium."
WHL0137-LS - Wikipedia
(*-- since this was before the Webb observation, we might get new information to add or modify the above)

 

[SelfSim]

Galaxy observations at redshift z=14, (290 million years after the event), by Webb. Now written up and available on arXiv and pending publication:

News release here: Wide view of early universe hints at galaxy among earliest ever detected

Paper is here:
A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away: A Candidate z ~ 14 Galaxy in Early JWST CEERS Imaging

 

[sjastro]

Major scandal unfolding.................
Scientists have released a Webb image of the red dwarf Proxima Centauri.

​

The image turned out to being a Spanish chorizo or smoked sausage.

A senior French scientist has apologised after tweeting a picture which he said was from the James Webb Space Telescope — but which was not quite what it seemed.
Etienne Klein, a director at France's Atomic Energy Commission, posted a picture purportedly showing Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our sun.
"This level of detail ... a new world is revealed every day", he enthused in the tweet, sent to more than 90,000 followers on Monday.
However, Professor Klein has now admitted that the glowing celestial body shown was in fact nothing more than a slice of Spanish chorizo sausage.

Klein has been sent to Devil's island penal colony according to IAU law.