NASA/ESA/CSA/M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)/M. K. McClure (Leiden Observatory)/F. Sun (Steward Observatory)/Z. Smith (Open University)/Ice Age ERS Team
An image of the central region of the Chameleon I dark molecular cloud, which is 630 light years away. Cool wispy cloud material (blue, center) illuminated in the infrared by the glow of the young protostar Ced 110 IRS 4 (orange, top left). Light from many background stars, visible as orange dots behind clouds, can be used to detect ice in clouds, which absorb starlight that passes through them.
Nationalgeographic.co.id—What’s so special about James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)? Space Telescope James Webb is an infrared observatory that will complement and expand the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, with longer wavelength coverage and vastly improved sensitivity.
Then, what will happen to Hubble after the James Webb Space Telescope operates? What is clear, the Hubble telescope task will be continued even equipped by Teleskop James Webb. This means Hubble will be discontinued.
Since JWST was successfully launched and operational, many amazing things in space have been revealed in more detail. Starting from the area of star formation, the discovery of galaxies similar to the Milky Way, new stars and planets, even places in outer space that were previously hidden. James Webb’s latest findings this time are revealing areas that were previously difficult to study.
An international team including the Southwest Research Institute, University of Leiden, and NASA used observations from JWST to get the darkest views of the dense interstellar cloud. These observations have revealed the composition of the ‘virtual treasure chest’ of the early universe.
The findings provide new insights into the chemical processes of one of the coldest and darkest places in the universe as well as the origins of the molecules that make up planetary atmospheres. In the paper, entitled “An Ice Age JWST inventory of dense molecular cloud ices,” the team’s study results were published in the journal Nature Astronomy on January 23, 2023.
Sara Rigby/Science Focus
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope designed primarily for performing infrared astronomy. As the largest optical telescope in outer space.
“JWST allows us to study ice present in dust grains in the darkest regions of interstellar molecular clouds,” said SwRI Research Scientist Dr. Danna Qasim, one of the authors of the study. “The clouds are so dense that most of this ice is shielded from the harsh radiation of nearby stars, so they are quite pure. This is the first ice to form and also contains biogenic elements, which are essential for life.”
NASA’s JWST features a 6.5 meter wide mirror that provides exceptional spatial resolution and sensitivity, optimized for infrared light. As a result, the telescope was able to image the densest and darkest clouds in the universe for the first time.
“These observations provide new insights into chemical processes in one of the coldest and darkest places in the universe to better understand the molecular origins of protoplanetary disks, planetary atmospheres and other Solar System objects,” said Qasim.
Most interstellar ice contains small amounts of elements such as oxygen and sulfur. Qasim and his co-authors are trying to understand the lack of sulfur in interstellar ice.
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“The ice we observed contained only the 1% sulfur we would expect. That 99% is locked up elsewhere, and we need to find out where to understand how the sulfur will eventually be incorporated into planets that might harbor life,” Qasim explained.
In the study, Qasim and colleagues proposed that sulfur might be locked up in reactive minerals such as iron sulfide, which can react with ice to form the observed sulfur-containing ices.
“Iron sulfide is a highly reactive mineral that has been detected in the accretion disks of young stars and samples returned from comets. It is also the most common sulfide mineral in lunar rocks,” said Qasim. “If sulfur is locked up in these minerals, that could explain the low amount of sulfur in them interstellar ice, which has implications for the reservoirs of sulfur in our Solar System. For example, the atmosphere of Venus has molecular sulfur, some of which comes from interstellar inheritance of minerals.”
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