Latest news with #NearInfrared
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
James Webb telescope reveals 'impossible' auroras on Jupiter that have astronomers scratching their heads
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. On Christmas Day in 2023, scientists trained the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on Jupiter's auroras and captured a dazzling light show. The researchers observed rapidly-changing features in Jupiter's vast auroras using JWST's infrared cameras. The findings could help explain how Jupiter's atmosphere is heated and cooled, according to a study published May 12 in Nature Communications. "What a Christmas present it was — it just blew me away!" study coauthor Jonathan Nichols, a researcher studying auroras at the University of Leicester in the UK, said in a statement. "We wanted to see how quickly the auroras change, expecting them to fade in and out ponderously, perhaps over a quarter of an hour or so. Instead, we observed the whole auroral region fizzing and popping with light, sometimes varying by the second." Auroras form when high-energy charged particles, often released from the sun, slam into gases in a planet's atmosphere, causing the gas to glow. Jupiter's strong magnetic field scoops up charged particles such as electrons from the solar wind — and from eruptions on its highly volcanic moon Io — and sends them hurtling toward the planet's poles, where they put on a spectacle hundreds of times brighter than Earth's Northern Lights. Related: NASA reveals 'glass-smooth lake of cooling lava' on surface of Jupiter's moon Io In the new study, the team looked closely at infrared light emitted by the trihydrogen cation, H3+. This molecule forms in Jupiter's auroras when energetic electrons meet hydrogen in the planet's atmosphere. Its infrared emission sends heat out of Jupiter's atmosphere, but the molecule can also be destroyed by fast-moving electrons. To date, no ground-based telescopes have been sensitive enough to determine exactly how long H3+ sticks around. But by using JWST's Near Infrared Camera, the team observed H3+ emissions that varied more than they expected. They found that H3+ lasts about two and a half minutes in Jupiter's atmosphere before being destroyed. That could help scientists tease out how much of an effect H3+ has on cooling Jupiter's atmosphere. RELATED STORIES —Mystery of Jupiter's powerful X-ray auroras finally solved —Powerful solar winds squish Jupiter's magnetic field 'like a giant squash ball' —Jupiter glows in stunning new James Webb telescope images But the scientists don't have the full picture yet. They also found some puzzling data when they turned the Hubble Space Telescope toward Jupiter at the same time. Hubble captured the ultraviolet light coming from the auroras, while JWST captured infrared light. "Bizarrely, the brightest light observed by Webb had no real counterpart in Hubble's pictures," Nichols said in the statement. "This has left us scratching our heads. In order to cause the combination of brightness seen by both Webb and Hubble, we need to have a combination of high quantities of very low-energy particles hitting the atmosphere, which was previously thought to be impossible. We still don't understand how this happens." In future work, the researchers plan to study the source of this unexpected pattern using additional JWST data as well as observations from NASA's Juno spacecraft, which has been observing Jupiter from orbit since 2016.
Yahoo
12-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA's Webb Space Telescope reveals ancient surface of Pluto and other celestial bodies for the first time
Scientists at NASA for the first time have been able to observe the make up of Pluto and other small and icy celestial bodies in the outer solar system. They had expected to find that the surfaces of the bodies, known as 'trans-Neptunian' objects, were dominated by frozen molecules that are gases or liquids on the surface of Earth, like water, methane, and carbon dioxide. They believed that radiation from the sun and solar system would alter that chemistry, creating new and more complex hydrocarbon molecules like methanol and ethane. New data from the James Webb Space Telescope's Near Infrared Spectrograph instrument (NIRSpec) has 'confirmed this, but in unexpected ways, and in unprecedented detail,' NASA explained in a blog post on Wednesday. The findings were published in the journal Nature Astronomy. To reach these conclusions, the researchers used data from NIRSpec, one of four science instruments on the Webb telescope. Spectrographs scatter light from an object into a spectrum: a chart or a graph that shows the intensity of light being emitted over a range of energies. Analyzing that chart can reveal an object's temperature, mass, and chemical composition. With the data from NIRSpec – which detects near-infrared wavelengths of light and is capable of observing more than 100 bodies at once – the scientists were able to study more than 75 trans-Neptunian objects. The objects range in size, with diameters less than tens of miles to 1,500-mile-diameter dwarf planets. The objects travel on orbits comparable in size or even larger than Neptune's orbit. NASA says their paths reflect the migration of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune during the early formation of the solar system. Data from nearly 60 trans-Neptunian objects helped to identify three 'spectral classes' characterizing the spectra they analyzed. Spectral classes are how astronomers categorize stars based on their light spectrum and temperature. The three categories are distinct in their color and shape. Notably, they are generated by molecules that contain water and feature carbon dioxide ice, and silicate-rich dust. Those that were shaped like bowls formed closer to the sun and were subject to higher temperatures, the space agency said. The data came from the DiSCo-TNOs program, which is comprised of a group of international researchers. Looking forward, researchers will work on imaging and spectroscopy of a handful of these objects and their satellites.
The Independent
12-02-2025
- Science
- The Independent
NASA's Webb Space Telescope reveals ancient surface of Pluto and other celestial bodies for the first time
Scientists at NASA for the first time have been able to observe the make up of Pluto and other small and icy celestial bodies in the outer solar system. They had expected to find that the surfaces of the bodies, known as 'trans-Neptunian' objects, were dominated by frozen molecules that are gases or liquids on the surface of Earth, like water, methane, and carbon dioxide. They believed that radiation from the sun and solar system would alter that chemistry, creating new and more complex hydrocarbon molecules like methanol and ethane. New data from the James Webb Space Telescope's Near Infrared Spectrograph instrument (NIRSpec) has 'confirmed this, but in unexpected ways, and in unprecedented detail,' NASA explained in a blog post on Wednesday. The findings were published in the journal Nature Astronomy. To reach these conclusions, the researchers used data from NIRSpec, one of four science instruments on the Webb telescope. Spectrographs scatter light from an object into a spectrum: a chart or a graph that shows the intensity of light being emitted over a range of energies. Analyzing that chart can reveal an object's temperature, mass, and chemical composition. With the data from NIRSpec – which detects near-infrared wavelengths of light and is capable of observing more than 100 bodies at once – the scientists were able to study more than 75 trans-Neptunian objects. The objects range in size, with diameters less than tens of miles to 1,500-mile-diameter dwarf planets. The objects travel on orbits comparable in size or even larger than Neptune's orbit. NASA says their paths reflect the migration of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune during the early formation of the solar system. Data from nearly 60 trans-Neptunian objects helped to identify three 'spectral classes' characterizing the spectra they analyzed. Spectral classes are how astronomers categorize stars based on their light spectrum and temperature. The three categories are distinct in their color and shape. Notably, they are generated by molecules that contain water and feature carbon dioxide ice, and silicate-rich dust. Those that were shaped like bowls formed closer to the sun and were subject to higher temperatures, the space agency said. The data came from the DiSCo-TNOs program, which is comprised of a group of international researchers. Looking forward, researchers will work on imaging and spectroscopy of a handful of these objects and their satellites.
