Introduction
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| James Webb Has A Problem |
New images of Neptune, Mars' Orion's belt discovered The kind of news we never want to give you: An instrument part of the James Webb Space Telescope is temporarily out of service. NASA has announced that JWST has stopped using one of the four observing modes of the mid-infrared instrument. What they noticed while preparing for an observation was an increase in friction.
The announcement was made on September 20, although regulators first noticed the problem on August 24. No one likes it when space telescopes - especially if we're talking about James Webb - have problems. But project officials are confident that it won't last long. Let's see it in more detail. Next, we'll also look at brand new images of Neptune and Mars taken by Webb. Let's go!
The Problem
Thus, one of four observing modes supported by the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on JWST is an observation mode that "displayed what appears to be frictional enhancement" during preparation for an observation. Is this as bad as it sounds? To understand this, we need to take a step back and see what the MIRI camera is and how it works. This amazing camera is the heart of the James Webb Space Telescope, and it lets us see the universe like we've never seen it before.
The infrared domain of the electromagnetic spectrum is not accessible to our eyes, as it is made up of wavelengths that are longer than our eyes. But MIRI cameras can. Thus, its sensitive detectors allow us to see red-shifted light from distant galaxies, newly formed stars, and very faint visible objects such as comets and objects in the Kuiper Belt. So this is what MIRI does. However, to understand what the problem with JWST is, we need to look at it in more detail. The four observation modes of MIRI instruments are imaging, low-resolution spectroscopy, coronagraphy, and medium-resolution spectroscopy.
NASA explains that "this mechanism is a grating wheel that allows scientists to select between longer, medium and shorter wavelengths when observing using the MRS mode." Engineers are still trying to figure out where the root of the problem lies and it may take some time for them to fix everything. Perhaps the smartest thing to do in this case is to turn off keen observation mode. At the International Astronautical Congress on September 21, NASA said it was taking a break and just making sure it was working well.
Everyone is pretty confident that it won't be a huge problem and it will be fixed soon. The truth is that NASA's engineers are some of the best engineers in the world, and they have been able to fix - for example - the problems and defects on board the Voyager probe, the most distant man-made object ever built. So I'm pretty sure they'll find a way to fix the problem with JWST. This may take some time as everything has to be done remotely. Unlike what was the case with the Hubble Space Telescope, NASA cannot fly a team into space to repair the JWST.
Hubble is in orbit around Earth, making it possible to send a shuttle, but JWST is far away - about a million miles. It is so far away that it does not actually orbit the Earth, but instead orbits the Sun. As such, physical repair is not an option. The web team needs to resolve this particular issue remotely. However, all other observing modes are working as expected, and JWST continues to perform at or above expectations otherwise.
Amazing Neptune
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| Amazing Neptune |
During the International Astronautical Congress, the mission revealed a stunning image of the planet Neptune. Look at it! It's actually the most detailed look at a distant planet since the Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by it in 1989! In 1846, Neptune has fascinated researchers since its discovery. It is 30 times farther from the Sun than Earth and orbits in the far, dark regions of the outer solar system. If you lived on Neptune, the Sun would be nothing more than a small and fuzzy disk.
Guys, it's cold out there! This implies that this planet is characterized as an ice giant due to the chemical makeup of its interior. Hubble and Webb operate in two different wavelength ranges. This is why Neptune doesn't look blue at all in web images. Also, if you're not an astronomer, you might be wondering why the web image shows Neptune's rings, while Hubble doesn't.
This is because most of the light from the planetary rings is emitted in the infrared domain of the electromagnetic spectrum. Therefore, the web is more suitable for this purpose. This is the most detailed picture we have of Neptune's rings. Some of the rings present in this picture, we have never seen before.
Amazing picture
The thin streak of brightness you see circling the planet's equator may be a visual signature of the global atmospheric circulation that powers Neptune's winds and storms. Neptune orbits the Sun in a 164-year orbit, and that means that currently, we can't see its north pole, but images on the web indicate an interesting glow in that region at the top of this image. But there's more to this picture than just Neptune. For example, do you see the bright object in the upper left? what is that It is Neptune's moon Triton.
Triton
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| Triton |
It is a very bright point of light and has the signature diffraction spike seen in many images on the web. Triton is an unusual moon. It is covered in a frozen sheen of condensed nitrogen and it reflects an average of 70 percent of the sunlight that hits it. That's why it looks so bright in NIRcam pictures! In fact, it surpasses Neptune in this picture. Why did this happen?
This is because the planet's atmosphere is darkened by methane absorption at near-infrared wavelengths. Triton's history is a complicated one. Dynamicalists believe that this moon was originally a Kuiper Belt object, which was eventually captured by Neptune due to both gravitational and non-gravitational processes. This may serve as an explanation for why Triton orbits Neptune in an unusual retrograde (retrograde) orbit. When it comes to rings, this image is amazing.
From the outer to the inner, we can distinguish the Adams ring - the most studied of the planet's five main rings, named in honor of John Couch Adams, who independently predicted the position of Neptune from Le Verrier - the Arago ring, the Lassel ring, and the Le Verrier ring.
It is also possible to distinguish the Galle ring, named after Johann Gottfried Galle, the first person to observe Neptune with a telescope in 1846, just one degree from the position calculated by Le Verrier and Adams. The other visible moons are, counterclockwise from left to right: Galatea, Naidae, Thalassa, Larissa, Proteus, and Despina. This moon is really interesting object. Despina, just 27,700 km (17,200 mi) from Neptune's clouds, orbits every 8 hours.
Its diameter is about 150 km (90 mi). It is irregular in shape and shows no sign of any geological change. Despina orbits the planet in the same direction as Neptune and is close to Neptune's equatorial plane. Proteus is an irregular moon. It is the planet's second largest moon after Triton. In fact the moon orbits very close to Neptune and is therefore undetectable from Earth because its light is lost in light reflected by the planet. Furthermore, Proteus is one of the darkest objects in the Solar System: it reflects only 6% of the light that hits it. The Moon's surface shows no signs of geological activity, either recent or past.
Pharos Moon
Thalassa, like the Naiads, was probably formed from fragments of Neptune's original moon, which was broken up by disturbances caused when Neptune captured Triton, the ice giant.
Thalassa
.png "Thalassa") |
| Thalassa |
Thalassa is unusual for an irregular moon in that it is roughly disc-shaped. Thalassa and the Naiads both orbit the planet in the same direction as Neptune and lie close to Neptune's equatorial plane. Thalassa's orbit is slowly being eroded by tides and may eventually crash into Neptune's atmosphere or tear apart to form a planetary ring.
Galatea
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| Galatea |
Galatea is irregularly shaped and shows no sign of any geological change. Last but not least, Larissa's orbit is mostly circular, but it is slowly spiraling inward and could eventually affect Neptune's atmosphere, or the gas giant's tidal currents could break up Larissa and form a planetary ring. Did you like the picture of Neptune? Well, it's not yet! James Webb also took the first photographs of Mars, the Red Planet. Mars is so close and so bright, and the web is so sensitive.
This is why the researchers had to use special observation techniques to avoid detector saturation, a phenomenon caused by too much infrared light that 'blinds' the sensors. They used very short exposures and filtered the light reaching the web instruments. The telescope's first images of Mars show an area in the planet's eastern hemisphere. The images show surprising surface features such as dust layers, craters and dark spots, including Hellas Basin, Syrtis Major and Huygens Crater, where the Perseverance rover is currently operating.
They also show temperature variations at different latitudes and times of the day! You can clearly see the warm regions where the sun was almost directly overhead, as well as the cooler regions in the northern hemisphere and near the polar regions of Mars. As you can see, even with the fourth observation mode turned off, the web is still capable of surprising us. We just have to wait and see how the engineers solve the problem. What do you think about the pictures of Neptune and Mars?