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Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have made a groundbreaking discovery: a galaxy that ceased forming new stars over 13 billion years ago, making it the oldest ‘dead’ galaxy ever observed. The galaxy, which existed a mere 700 million years after the Big Bang, is odd by galactic standards. Now, based on recent findings, it’s also challenging our understanding of early galaxy evolution. In research led by Tobias J. Looser and an international team of astronomers, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has discovered an ancient quiescent galaxy. At a redshift of z=7.3, it is the oldest galaxy...

This Hubble Space Telescope image shows the unbarred spiral galaxy NGC 5033, located about 40 million light-years away in the constellation of Canes Venatici (the Hunting Dogs). The galaxy is similar in size to our own galaxy, the Milky Way, at just over 100,000 light-years across. (Image Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA; Acknowledgment: Judy Schmidt) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ At the center of this image is a monster young star 200,000 times brighter than our Sun that is blasting powerful ultraviolet radiation and hurricane-like stellar winds, carving out a fantasy landscape of ridges, cavities, and mountains of gas and dust. (NASA, ESA, and STScI)...

Stunning new images released by NASA on Monday detailed new images of Uranus, revealing a stunning look at its glowing rings and one rarely seen feature. The photos, taken by NASA’s high-power James Webb Space Telescope, captured the icy planet along with its multiple inner and outer rings, nine of its 27 known moons and a seasonal polar cap. The new pictures offer a rare glimpse of the “elusive” Zeta ring, an extremely faint and diffuse ring closest to the planet — shown in a reddish brown. Multiple other rings were captured in a glowing blue. The Webb telescope also...

This artist’s concept shows what exoplanet K2-18 b could look like based on science data. K2-18 b, an exoplanet 8.6 times as massive as Earth, orbits the cool dwarf star K2-18 in the habitable zone and lies 120 light-years from Earth. A new investigation with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope into K2-18 b has revealed the presence of carbon-bearing molecules including methane and carbon dioxide. The abundance of methane and carbon dioxide, and shortage of ammonia, support the hypothesis that there may be a water ocean underneath a hydrogen-rich atmosphere in K2-18 b. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI),...

The James Webb Space Telescope is back to full science operations. One of the telescope’s instruments, the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) had been offline since January 15 due to a communications error. But engineers worked through the problem and were able to return the instrument to full operations. “NASA and CSA [Canadian Space Agency] partnered to approach the problem as technically possible, using a detailed consideration of all areas of operation of the instrument,” said Julie Van Campen, Webb Integrated Science Instrument Module (ISIM) systems engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, in a blog post update....

Distant Galaxy The image of the most distant galaxy, GHZ2/GLASS-z12. (NASA/ESA/CSA/T. Treu, UCLA/NAOJ/T. Bakx, Nagoya U) A galaxy whose light has traveled nearly 13.5 billion years to reach us has just been confirmed as the earliest galaxy found to date. By studying the oxygen content of the galaxy with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have precisely dated it to just 367 million years after the Big Bang, a time when the first lights in the Universe were still switching on and starting to propagate freely through space. The result confirms observations made by JWST, and offers new information...

The location of the most distant galaxy ever detected. (NASA, ESA, CSA, M. Zamani/ESA/Webb) Light that has traveled for over 13.4 billion years to reach our neighborhood of space has been confirmed as originating from the earliest, most distant galaxy detected yet. That places the most distant of these four very young objects at the very dawn of the Universe, just a short time after the Big Bang – a time period when the Universe was still foggy and bleary and the first rays of light were penetrating the darkness. So detailed are the JWST's long spectroscopic observations that researchers...

[Video] The video triggered fierce backlash online. HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - A Big Island man is publicly apologizing after starting an uproar for posting a video of himself urinating on Mauna Kea. After a torrent of criticism, he told Hawaii News Now he learned a valuable lesson and now wants to work to help educate others. Travis Upright gave permission to share a video he recorded, asking for forgiveness. “I never meant to hurt anyone. I never meant to create so much harm but that’s no excuse. It still happened and I’m sorry,” said Upright. In the six-minute apology video, Upright...

Schematic diagram of the newly discovered Ross 508 planetary system. The green region represents the habitable zone where liquid water can exist on the planetary surface. The planetary orbit is shown as a blue line. A Planet has Been Found That Shifts In and Out of the Habitable Zone A super-Earth planet has been found orbiting a red dwarf star, only 37 light-years from the Earth. Named Ross 508 b, the newly found world has an unusual elliptical orbit that causes it to shift in and out of the habitable zone. Therefore, part of the time conditions would be...

July 22 (UPI) -- NASA's latest deep-space telescope continues to shock astronomers and amateurs with jaw-dropping new images captured from the outer reaches of the cosmos. The James Webb Space Telescope appears to have pictured a wormhole spinning in the "Phantom Galaxy," a place whose very center scientists believe may contain a black hole. "I've been doing this for 10 years now, and [Webb] data is new, different and exciting," Judy Schmidt, who processed raw data from NASA into a stunning photo of the Phantom Galaxy, told Space.com. "Of course I'm going to make something with it." The latest images...

Senior Project Scientist John Mather Reflects on Journey to Webb’s First ImagesPeople around the world joined together in excitement as the first color scientific images and spectra from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope were revealed this week. Webb is fully commissioned and already embarked on its first year of peer-reviewed science programs. We asked Webb senior project scientist John Mather to reflect on reaching this moment after 25 years, taking Webb from an initial spark of an idea to the world’s premier space observatory.Credit: NASA/Taylor Mickal “It was worth the wait! Our immense golden telescope is seeing where none have...

Expect JWST to release more information faster than its predecessor telescopes.Our tiny corner of the cosmos has just gotten bigger, brighter, and bolder, and it’s all thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). NASA just dropped some of the most high-definition images of the universe ever taken. Although the telescope began science operations merely six months ago, its first batch—including five neighboring galaxies called Stephan’s Quintet and the Carina Nebula, a gaseous expanse where stars are born—are among the most stunning celestial pictures yet made. Inspiring wonder in space-lovers around the world is harder than it looks. A lot...

Graphic on the different types of "exoplanets" which the new James Webb telescope will be investigating to determine the composition of their atmospheres and the presence of water. The first stunning images from the James Webb Space Telescope were revealed this week, but its journey of cosmic discovery has only just begun. Here is a look at two early projects that will take advantage of the orbiting observatory's powerful instruments. The first stars and galaxiesOne of the great promises of the telescope is its ability to study the earliest phase of cosmic history, shortly after the Big Bang 13.8...

(NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI) This morning we were in a frenzy over a sneaky side-glimpse of a galaxy revealed in the first full-color James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images. But if you thought that was wild, then wait for this: it turns out JWST has also dropped some stealthy images of Jupiter! And they're ridiculously beautiful. These images, taken while JWST was being tested, were provided in the JWST commissioning report. umm who else saw this in the commissioning report document?? 😍😍😍😍🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯https://t.co/AzwQCf6rat pic.twitter.com/nq13fxdsAM — Erin M. May, PhD (@_astronomay) July 12, 2022 The images, which you can see in...

NASA Shares the 5 Cosmic Targets of James Webb’s First Photos JUL 08, 2022 JARON SCHNEIDER James Webb Space Telescope NASA as revealed the cosmic objects that will be shown when it releases the first full-color photos captured by the James Webb Space Telescope on July 12. The space agency says that the five targets listed below represent the first wave of full-color scientific images and spectra that the James Webb Space Telescope has gathered and will mark the official beginning of the observatory’s general science operations. The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb...

Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor Provides a PreviewWe are less than one week away from the release of the first full-color images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, but how does the observatory find and lock onto its targets? Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) – developed by the Canadian Space Agency – was designed with this particular question in mind. Recently it captured a view of stars and galaxies that provides a tantalizing glimpse at what the telescope’s science instruments will reveal in the coming weeks, months, and years. FGS has always been capable of capturing imagery, but its primary...

Industrial-scale agriculture has changed the make up of our atmosphere. So "exofarms" ought to be visible on Earth-like planets orbiting other stars. One of the key developments separating modern civilization from the hunter gatherer societies of the past is the invention of farming, which took place about 10,000 years ago. This began with the cultivation of wild plants and the domestication of various animals for dairy products and meat. The big advantage of farming is that it sustains a much larger population than hunting and gathering. This led to the emergence of cities, the sharing of natural resources and of...

NASA is set to release the first pictures taken by the highly sophisticated James Webb Space Telescope next month, agency officials announced on Wednesday. In a highly anticipated ceremony on July 12, NASA and its collaborators, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, will present the first collection of full-color photos from the Webb telescope. The $10 billion observatory is the biggest and most powerful space telescope ever built, and scientists have predicted that it will drastically alter how we understand the universe, per a report from NBC News. NASA will begin a live stream of the presentation...

Short (6m33sec) video describing what cosmologists think the very early universe was like and how the Webb will let them see it.

NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) will jointly release the James Webb Space Telescope’s first full-color images and spectroscopic data during a live broadcast on July 12 at 10:40 AM EDT.The trio of space agencies plans to release the images one by one and the broadcast will serve to kick off the scientific operations of the largest and most powerful space telescope the world has ever launched.The photos will not be available to anyone prior to the live unveiling, allowing the entire world to enjoy the photos together unspoiled.Live coverage of the image release...