Sunday, December 18, 2022

ESPRESSO and CARMENES discover two potentially habitable exo-Earths around a star near the Sun

Peer-Reviewed Publication

INSTITUTO DE ASTROFÍSICA DE CANARIAS (IAC)

Two Earth-mass planets orbiting the star GJ 1002 

IMAGE: ARTIST'S IMPRESSION OF TWO EARTH-MASS PLANETS ORBITING THE STAR GJ 1002 view more 

CREDIT: ALEJANDRO SUÁREZ MASCAREÑO AND INÉS BONET (IAC)

“Nature seems bent on showing us that Earth-like planets are very common. With these two we now know 7 in planetary systems quite near to the Sun” explains Alejandro Suárez Mascareño, an IAC researcher, who is the first author of the study accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysics.

The newly discovered planets orbit the star GJ 1002, which is at a distance of less than 16 light years from the Solar System. Both of them have masses similar to that of the Earth, and they are in the habitability zone of their star. GJ 1002b, the inner of the two, takes little more than 10 days to complete an orbit around the star, while GJ 1002c needs a little over 21 days. “GJ 1002 is a red dwarf star, with barely one eighth the mass of the Sun. It is quite a cool, faint star. This means that its habitability zone is very close to the star” explains Vera María Passegger, a co-author of the article and an IAC researcher.

The proximity of the star to our Solar System implies that the two planets, especially GJ 1002c, are excellent candidates for the characterization of their atmospheres based either on their reflected light, or on their thermal emission. “The future ANDES spectrograph for the ELT telescope at ESO in which the IAC is participating, could study the presence of oxygen in the atmosphere of GJ 1002c” notes Jonay I. González Hernández, an IAC researcher who is a co-author of the article. In addition, both planets satisfy the characteristics needed for them to be objectives for the future LIFE mission, which is presently in a study phase.

The discovery was made during a collaboration between the consortia of the two instruments ESPRESSO and CARMENES. GJ 1002 was observed by CARMENES between 2017 and 2019, and by ESPRESSO between 2019 and 2021. “Because of its low temperature the visible light from GJ 1002 is too faint to measure its variations in velocity with the majority of spectrographs” says says Ignasi Ribas, researcher at the Institute of Space Sciences (ICE-CSIC) and director of the Institut d'Estudis Espacials de Catalunya (IEEC). CARMENES has a sensitivity over a wide range of near infrared wavelengths which is superior to those of other spectrographs aimed at detecting variations in the velocities of stars, and this allowed it to study GJ 1002, from the 3.5m telescope at Calar Alto observatory.

The combination of ESPRESSO, and the light gathering power of the VLT 8m telescopes at ESO allowed measurements to be made with an accuracy of only 30 cm/sec, not attainable with any other instrument in the world. “Either of the two groups would have had many difficulties if they had tackled this work independently. Jointly we have been able to get much further than we would have done acting independently” states Suárez Mascareño.



Webb Space Telescope reveals previously shrouded newborn stars

Webb’s infrared camera peers through dust clouds, enabling discovery

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RICE UNIVERSITY

JWST infrared image of Cosmic Cliffs 

IMAGE: ASTRONOMERS FROM RICE UNIVERSITY AND OTHER ORGANIZATIONS DUG DEEP INTO THE DATA FROM THIS NEAR-INFRARED IMAGE, ONE OF THE FIRST TAKEN BY NASA’S JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE. THE IMAGE SHOWS A STAR-FORMING REGION IN THE CONSTELLATION CARINA KNOWN AS THE COSMIC CLIFFS. MANY NEWBORN STARS IN SUCH REGIONS ARE SHROUDED IN THICK CLOUDS OF DUST. WEBB’S INFRARED CAMERA PENETRATED THE DUST, ALLOWING ASTRONOMERS TO DISCOVER TELLTALE SIGNS OF TWO DOZEN INFANT STARS THAT HADN’T BEEN PREVIOUSLY DETECTED. view more 

CREDIT: IMAGE COURTESY OF NASA, ESA, CSA AND STSCI

HOUSTON – (Dec. 16, 2022) – Rice University astronomer Megan Reiter and colleagues took a “deep dive” into one of the first images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and were rewarded with the discovery of telltale signs from two dozen previously unseen young stars about 7,500 light years from Earth.

The published research in the December issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society offers a glimpse of what astronomers will find with Webb’s near-infrared camera. The instrument is designed to peer through clouds of interstellar dust that have previously blocked astronomers’ view of stellar nurseries, especially those that produce stars similar to Earth’s sun.

Reiter, an assistant professor of physics and astronomy, and co-authors from the California Institute of Technology, the University of Arizona, Queen Mary University in London and the United Kingdom’s Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, Scotland, analyzed a portion of Webb’s first images of the Cosmic Cliffs, a star-forming region in a cluster of stars known as NGC 3324.

“What Webb gives us is a snapshot in time to see just how much star formation is going on in what may be a more typical corner of the universe that we haven’t been able to see before,” said Reiter, who led the study.

Located in the southern constellation Carina, NGC 3324 hosts several well-known regions of star formation that astronomers have studied for decades. Many details from the region have been obscured by dust in images from the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories. Webb’s infrared camera was built to see through dust in such regions and to detect jets of gas and dust that spew from the poles of very young stars.

Reiter and colleagues focused their attention on a portion of NGC 3324 where only a few young stars had previously been found. By analyzing a specific infrared wavelength, 4.7 microns, they discovered two dozen previously unknown outflows of molecular hydrogen from young stars. The outflows range in size, but many appear to come from protostars that will eventually become low-mass stars like Earth’s sun.

“The findings speak both to how good the telescope is and to how much there is going on in even quiet corners of the universe,” Reiter said.

Within their first 10,000 years, newborn stars gather material from the gas and dust around them. Most young stars eject a fraction of that material back into space via jets that stream out in opposite directions from their poles. Dust and gas pile up in front of the jets, which clear paths through nebular clouds like snowplows. One vital ingredient for baby stars, molecular hydrogen, gets swept up by these jets and is visible in Webb’s infrared images.

“Jets like these are signposts for the most exciting part of the star formation process,” said study co-author Nathan Smith of the University of Arizona. “We only see them during a brief window of time when the protostar is actively accreting.”

The accretion period of early star formation has been especially difficult for astronomers to study because it is fleeting — usually just a few thousand years in the earliest portion of a star’s multimillion-year childhood.

Study co-author Jon Morse of the California Institute of Technology said jets like those discovered in the study “are only visible when you embark on that deep dive — dissecting data from each of the different filters and analyzing each area alone.

“It’s like finding buried treasure,” Morse said.

Reiter said the size of the Webb telescope also played a role in the discovery.

“It's just a huge light bucket,” Reiter said. “That lets us see smaller things that we might have missed with a smaller telescope. And it also gives us really good angular resolution. So we get a level of sharpness that allows us to see relatively small features, even in faraway regions.”

The Webb Space Telescope program is led by NASA in partnership with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The telescope’s science and mission operations are led by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore.

The research was supported by NASA (NAS 5-0312, NAS 5–26555), STScI and a Dorothy Hodgkin Fellowship from the UK’s Royal Society.

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Matter flows away from the poles of newborn stars in fast-moving columns that plow through nebular clouds. Gas and dust pile up in front of these outflows, forming waves called “bow shocks” in much the same way that bow waves form at the leading edge of seagoing ships. This false-color infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows bow shocks of molecular hydrogen (red) streaming away from newborn stars in a star-forming region called the Cosmic Cliffs in the southern constellation Carina.

CREDIT

Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI


Peer-reviewed paper:

“Deep diving off the ‘Cosmic Cliffs’: previously hidden outflows in NGC 3324 revealed by JWST” | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stac2820

Megan Reiter, Jon A. Morse, Nathan Smith, Thomas J. Haworth, Michael A. Kuhn and Pamela D. Klaassen

https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac2820

High-resolution IMAGES are available for download at:

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2022/12/1215_COSMIC-f2a-lg.jpg
CAPTION: Astronomers from Rice University and other organizations dug deep into the data from this near-infrared image, one of the first taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The image shows a star-forming region in the constellation Carina known as the Cosmic Cliffs. Many newborn stars in such regions are shrouded in thick clouds of dust. Webb’s infrared camera penetrated the dust, allowing astronomers to discover telltale signs of two dozen infant stars that hadn’t been previously detected. (Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI)

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2022/12/1215_COSMIC-mr9Fit-lg.jpg
CAPTION: Rice University astronomer Megan Reiter led a “deep dive” study of the earliest images from the James Webb Space Telescope. The research revealed telltale signs of two dozen previously uncataloged young stars in the star cluster NGC 3324 in the constellation Carina. (Photo by Jeff Fitlow/Rice University)

https://news-network.rice.edu/news/files/2022/12/1215_COSMIC-f2b-lg.jpg
CAPTION: Matter flows away from the poles of newborn stars in fast-moving columns that plow through nebular clouds. Gas and dust pile up in front of these outflows, forming waves called “bow shocks” in much the same way that bow waves form at the leading edge of seagoing ships. This false-color infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows bow shocks of molecular hydrogen (red) streaming away from newborn stars in a star-forming region called the Cosmic Cliffs in the southern constellation Carina. (Image courtesy of NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI)

Related stories:

Gemini South’s high-def version of ‘A Star is Born’ – Oct. 5, 2020
https://news.rice.edu/news/2020/gemini-souths-high-def-version-star-born

Moon-forming disk discovered around distant planet - July 11, 2019
https://news2.rice.edu/2019/07/11/moon-forming-disk-discovered-around-distant-planet/

Direct from distant planet: Spectral clues to puzzling paradox – June 10, 2019
https://news2.rice.edu/2019/06/10/direct-from-distant-planet-spectral-clues-to-puzzling-paradox/

Carina Nebula survey reveals details of star formation – March 9, 2015
https://news2.rice.edu/2015/03/09/carina-nebula-survey-reveals-details-of-star-formation/

Hubble movies reveal solar-system-sized traffic jams – Aug. 31, 2011
https://news2.rice.edu/2011/09/07/hubble-movies-reveal-solar-system-sized-traffic-jams/

This release can be found online at news.rice.edu.

Follow Rice News and Media Relations via Twitter @RiceUNews.

Located on a 300-acre forested campus in Houston, Rice University is consistently ranked among the nation’s top 20 universities by U.S. News & World Report. Rice has highly respected schools of Architecture, Business, Continuing Studies, Engineering, Humanities, Music, Natural Sciences and Social Sciences and is home to the Baker Institute for Public Policy. With 4,240 undergraduates and 3,972 graduate students, Rice’s undergraduate student-to-faculty ratio is just under 6-to-1. Its residential college system builds close-knit communities and lifelong friendships, just one reason why Rice is ranked No. 1 for lots of race/class interaction and No. 1 for quality of life by the Princeton Review. Rice is also rated as a best value among private universities by Kiplinger’s Personal Finance.

JWST PEARLS project unveils exquisite views of distant galaxies

Peer-Reviewed Publication

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY


The press release and accompanying multimedia are available online on ASU News here

For decades, the Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based telescopes have provided us with spectacular images of galaxies. This all changed when the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) launched in December 2021 and successfully completed commissioning during the first half of 2022. For astronomers, the universe, as we had seen it, is now revealed in a new way never imagined by the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera(NIRCam) instrument.  

The NIRCam is Webb's primary imager that covers the infrared wavelength range from 0.6 to 5 microns. NIRCam detects light from the earliest stars and galaxies in the process of formation, the population of stars in nearby galaxies, as well as young stars in the Milky Way and Kuiper Belt objects. 

The Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science, or PEARLS, project is the subject of a recent study published in Astronomical Journal by a team of researchers, including Arizona State University School of Earth and Space Exploration Regents Professor Rogier Windhorst, Research Scientist Rolf Jansen, Associate Research Scientist Seth Cohen, Research Assistant Jake Summers and Graduate Associate Rosalia O'Brien, along with the contribution of many other researchers.  

For researchers, the PEARLS program's images of the earliest galaxies show the amount of gravitational lensing of objects in the background of massive clusters of galaxies, allowing the team to see some of these very distant objects. In one of these relatively deep fields, the team has worked with stunning multicolor images to identify interacting galaxies with active nuclei. 

Windhorst and his team's data show evidence for giant black holes in their center where you can see the accretion disc — the stuff falling into the black hole, shining very brightly in the galaxy center. Plus, lots of galactic stars show up like drops on your car's windshields — like you're driving through intergalactic space. This colorful field is straight up from the ecliptic plane, the plane in which the Earth and the moon, and all the other planets, orbit around the sun.  

"For over two decades, I've worked with a large international team of scientists to prepare our Webb science program," Windhorst said. "Webb's images are truly phenomenal, really beyond my wildest dreams. They allow us to measure the number density of galaxies shining to very faint infrared limits and the total amount of light they produce. This light is much dimmer than the very dark infrared sky measured between those galaxies." 

The first thing the team can see in these new images is that many galaxies that were next to or truly invisible to Hubble are bright in the images taken by Webb. These galaxies are so far away that the light emitted by stars has been stretched. 

The team focused on the North Ecliptic Pole time domain field with the Webb telescope — easily viewed due to its location in the sky. Windhorst and the team plan to observe it four times.

The first observations, consisting of two overlapping tiles, produced an image that shows objects as faint as the brightness of 10 fireflies at the distance of the moon (with the moon not there). The ultimate limit for Webb is one or two fireflies. The faintest reddest objects visible in the image are distant galaxies that go back to the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang.

For most of Jansen's career, he's worked with cameras on the ground and in space, where you have a single instrument with a single camera that produces one image. Now scientists have an instrument that has not just one detector or one image coming out of it, but 10 simultaneously. For every exposure NIRCam takes, it gives 10 of these images. That's a massive amount of data, and the sheer volume can be overwhelming. 

To process that data and channel it through the analysis software of collaborators around the globe, Summers has been instrumental. 

“The JWST images far exceed what we expected from my simulations prior to the first science observations,” Summers said. “Analyzing these JWST images, I was most surprised by their exquisite resolution.” 

Jansen’s primary interest is to figure out how galaxies like our own Milky Way came to be. And the way to do that is by looking far back in time at how galaxies came together, seeing how they evolved, effectively, and so tracing the path from the Big Bang to people like us.  

"I was blown away by the first PEARLS images," Jansen said. "Little did I know, when I selected this field near the North Ecliptic Pole, that it would yield such a treasure trove of distant galaxies, and that we would get direct clues about the processes by which galaxies assemble and grow — I can see streams, tails, shells and halos of stars in their outskirts, the leftovers of their building blocks." 

Third-year astrophysics graduate student O'Brien designed algorithms to measure faint light between the galaxies and stars that first catch our eye. 

"The diffuse light that I measured in between stars and galaxies has cosmological significance, encoding the history of the universe," O'Brien said. "I feel fortunate to start my career right now — JWST data is like nothing we have ever seen, and I'm excited about the opportunities and challenges it offers." 

“I expect that this field will be monitored throughout the JWST mission, to reveal objects that move, vary in brightness or briefly flare up, like distant exploding supernovae or accreting gas around black holes in active galaxies,” Jansen said.

 

ASU press contact:   

Kim Baptista, 707-479-0311, Kim.baptista@asu.edu

 

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