The Adirondack Sky Center and Observatory in Tupper Lake recently hosted a panel discussion on the James Webb Space Telescope with experts discussing its mission and the first images that it has transmitted.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Christmas Day 2021. It took about a month to reach its orbit and begin unfolding the mirrors and sunshield critical to continuing its mission.
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope science operations manager Kevin Hartnett calls the Webb telescope an astrophysics flagship mission.
“I’m very excited that theorical astrophysics can now be informed by previously unattainable observations. We’re entering a new realm.”
Adirondack Sky Center President Seth McGowan moderated the panel. He posed a submitted question that past Director of Science Information and Public Outreach for the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics David Aguilar and Henry Priest Professor of Physics at St. Lawrence University Dr. Aileen O’Donoghue addressed.
“One of our questions," said McGowan, "is what is the most anticipated discovery that James Webb is supposed to make?”
“Oh I know what that is for me!" exclaimed Aguilar. "Life on another planet.”
“What they’re really looking for," noted O’Donoghue, "is free oxygen.”
Aguilar continued, “If we start finding atmospheres that are in the 20 percentiles there’s something going on on that planet and it’s basically probably mimicking some of the same processes we see for life here on earth. That to me is the golden chalice of discovery from James Webb.”
While Aguilar places finding life a top priority of the Webb mission, the other scientists ranked it of lower importance. Hartnett noted that it is not part of the Webb Telescope’s mission goals.
“Characterizing the atmospheres of exoplanets, especially earth-like, earth-size planets is one of the major goals. But they don’t list it as a major goal of this mission to detect life or they might have designed it a bit different. The stated goals of the mission are to look back and see when the stars and galaxies first began to form. There’s nothing that can look that far right now. Then to look at exoplanet atmospheres and then to try to get a handle on this expansion rate of the universe problem.”
The first images from Webb were released on July 12th and the panel talked about how the new photos differ from what the Hubble Telescope has taken.
St. Lawrence University astronomy and physics professor Jeffrey Miller works with Cornell University and other colleges to measure extragalactic hydrogen.
“With James Webb we can see more of the infrared light. So what is that telling us? That there’s a lot more dust in our universe. There’s plenty of dust out there. That’s part of the material that makes planets and stars. And we can see objects more readily through that dust. So we’re enhancing our knowledge, our view, of what we can actually see by looking at these longer redder wavelengths.”
Aguilar pointed to two pictures, one taken by Hubble and the other by Webb, to explain how wavelengths are assigned colors.
“The one above is a Hubble. It’s more in the visible wavelength. But down below there is so much more data. What they’re doing is assigning different colors to the elements. And I see oxygen in there. I see sodium in there. There’s an amazing abundance of elements that we’re now seeing in these clouds that tell us all this stuff is floating out there in space. It’s a laboratory for life.”
