The Hubble is a hard act to follow - James Webb Space Telescope

[Rick]

JWST alignment evaluation image: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap220319.html

[Rick]

Meteoroid hits main mirror on James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope has barely had a chance to get to work, and it's already taken a micrometeoroid to its sensitive primary mirror.

The NASA-built space observatory reached its final destination, the L2 orbit, a million miles away from Earth, at the end of January.

In a statement, NASA said the impact happened some time at the end of May. Despite the impact being larger than any that NASA modeled and "beyond what the team could have tested on the ground," the space agency said the telescope continues to perform at higher-than-expected levels. The telescope has been hit on four previous occasions since launch.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2022/06/09/james_webb_meteoroid/

[Rick]

First Images from the James Webb Space Telescope

This first image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb's First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb's view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length by someone on the ground.

See it here

More: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

[Rick]

...and this Twitter post includes a short video which shows the image in context, with some comparisons with the previous best images of that patch of sky.

Watch it: https://twitter.com/AlyssaAGoodman/status/1546675001755111424

[Hugh]

Thanks for both links Rick!

Goodman link really puts the image size into context.

- Hugh

[Roy]

Here's a video produced by Adam Block (one of the Worlds' best astro-imagers) showing a direct comparison between Hubble and JSWT and watching this you begin to realise just how stonkingly good the JWST is. It's not just everything is so much sharper and brighter, but the background noise is much, much lower.

Roy

[Hugh]

Many thanks Roy ~ good link.

As you say the improved image quality is substantial.  Some of the red shift galaxies are just not visible in the HST pics!

- Hugh

[Rick]

Behold: The first images snapped by the James Webb Space Telescope

Over Christmas, after decades of work, the $10-billion telescope was finally launched into space and sent to orbit the Sun at a gravitationally stable point 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. After unfurling its 22-metre (70-foot) sunshield, it snapped its giant gold-plated hexagonal mirror in place for its detectors to begin absorbing its first light.

Photons from objects forged over 13 billion years ago bouncing off the space observatory's mirrors are being redirected into its instruments. A collection of cameras take snapshot views of deep space, while spectrometers study the frequencies of the detected light to get an idea of the chemical composition of what we're seeing.

Now, the first images taken by the JWST have arrived revealing some of the most spectacular cosmic phenomena unfolding in space. These photos, which took hours to capture and are a composite of many images, were published online this week by NASA and its friends after the very first snap was revealed on Monday. Let's run through them.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/13/james_webb_space_telescope_images/

[Rick]

Dust Shells around WR 140 from Webb

What are those strange rings? Rich in dust, the rings are likely 3D shells -- but how they were created remains a topic of research.

APOD: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap221013.html

[Carole]

Ooer

[Rick]

James Webb Space Telescope suffers another hitch: Instrument down

The Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is currently offline, and all science observations using the instrument will have to be rescheduled as engineers try to repair the thing.

"On Sunday, January 15, the James Webb Space Telescope's NIRISS experienced a communications delay within the instrument, causing its flight software to time out," NASA confirmed in a statement this week.

More: https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/26/jwst_instrument_failure/

[Dave A]

NASA's Webb Finds Water, and a New Mystery, in Rare Main Belt Comet

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has enabled another long-sought scientific breakthrough, this time for solar system scientists studying the origins of Earth's abundant water. Using Webb's NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument, astronomers have confirmed gas – specifically water vapor – around a comet in the main asteroid belt for the first time, indicating that water ice from the primordial solar system can be preserved in that region. However, the successful detection of water comes with a new puzzle: unlike other comets, Comet 238P/Read had no detectable carbon dioxide.

More: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/nasa-s-webb-finds-water-and-a-new-mystery-in-rare-main-belt-comet