Giant Cold War Radar Bought by Tech Millionaire to “Find UFOs”

The abandoned Royal Air Force (RAF) air defense radar station was home to British IT entrepreneur William Sachiti for around three months until he asked for assistance in a Reddit thread.

He wrote in a post on /r/electronics that featured a picture of a massive AMES Type 84 radar equipment, that he wanted help to bring that back to life. It is a huge dish that is 60 feet wide and 25 feet tall and is supported by a pedestal. It sent out microwaves with a 250-mile range, and there were warnings around that warned of ionizing radiation.

Despite posting under an assumed identity, Redditors swiftly identified Sachiti as the author. Only five Type 84s were ever produced by Britain, and Redditors were able to find this one using some open source intelligence technologies. Additionally, Sachiti’s acquisition of the tower and the former RAF site made British headlines.

A few people have responded, according to Sachiti, expressing a desire to use it to scan the Moon. Someone asked him why he purchased the item in the discussion itself. Because he said he has persuaded himself in using to look for UFOs may be entertaining.

The response, according to Sachiti, was somewhat of a joke, but other individuals had contacted him in a serious manner about utilizing the device to search for unexplained flying objects. There are undoubtedly UFO seekers, he claimed. He also doesn’t get to decide what the best use is for it in the present world. As long as it’s not harmful and obtrusive, we should give it some life… He has the technology.

When questioned about the abundance of new information regarding UFOs and the potential of extraterrestrial life in general. He said that although aliens could already be here, they are likely too evolved for us to even contemplate them. The lack of actionable knowledge throughout all this time is the reason it doesn’t worry him too much, he added. Assuming an ant wanted to communicate with humanity, would we even notice? These UFOs, if there is any form of intelligence behind them, have mostly ignored us.

Through Reddit, we were able to contact Sachiti and get him on Zoom. He was on the grounds of the RAF base, sitting in a solar-powered bus as we talked. He managed to get his laptop out to where I could see the Type 84, which was looming behind some trees.

He claimed that although it was just sitting there, it was slowly deteriorating because nobody had been around for a long. And each time he had looked at it, he had simply felt that something needed to be done.

Roboticist and artificial intelligence entrepreneur Sachiti’s business, Kar-go, employs autonomous vehicles to deliver products around Britain. He said that the reason he purchased the base was because he required area for research and development. Roads, industries, and subterranean bunkers were all present. It is essentially all our business required.

However, the acquisition included more than simply the area he needs. The Type 84 is classified as a Grade II listed structure. That indicates that it is protected as a historical monument of considerable cultural significance to the nation and its history and cannot be destroyed.

Sachiti claimed that he felt depressed every time he saw the object. He desired to make repairs. He continued by saying that it is more about giving something new life when it had otherwise progressively deteriorated. It is gorgeous, and he urgently wanted to give it some sort of new life.

AMES Type 84 radar is a remnant of the Cold War. The five radar devices were a part of a system that could notify the British military if nuclear weapons were approaching. They ran from 1962 to 1994 and produced a significant amount of ionized radiation using microwaves. Additionally, he said that once this item was done, it used to spin around four times each minute. Every TV [in the surrounding] would be static for roughly three seconds whenever it performed a scan.

The ionizing radiation will be left behind, according to Sachiti, who wants to set the machine spinning once more. He told me that the bus he’s riding on now operates on solar energy after previously using fuel.

In order to give contemporary technology life, he added, we must figure out how to use it. Finding professionals who could assist him in getting it back up and running was his immediate thinking. He also said that we can today create little desktop-sized devices and power some of the things that in the 1960s required a huge room.

When asked why he utilizes Reddit to locate helpers, he responded that you can see in the thread that you can find individuals that are very detailed and will explain everything to you in detail. You would never find someone with that kind of talent by placing an ad in the newspaper. Even a television advertisement… The ability to publish in a very particular subreddit, where geeks who produce stuff like this play with it, is what he enjoys about Reddit. The beauty of asking the correct question to the appropriate audience is that he has received an overwhelming number of responses from unquestionable experts.

Although Sachiti is unsure of where this may go, he is optimistic that improving the historic place will have positive effects. Eventually, he says, possibly colleges or students will logon and utilize it to do the necessary scans.

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

Crop Circles Are Blueprints For UFO’s?

Romanski used AutoCAD to create a 3D model of one of the crop circles from 2009. It looked like “some kind of machine.” He said it looked like a “power plant for alternative zero-point energy…some people may call it a light-speed engine.

Crop circles started heavily appearing in the English countryside in the 1980s and 1990s; they appear to this day. Some are elaborate and represent mathematical equations. In 2008, for example, one crop circle in England represented the first ten digits of Pi; it was divided into 10 invisible segments like a pizza pie.

It is no argument that many crop circles are made by people. In 1991, two men Doug Bower and David Chorley of England admitted to creating 250 of them but of course there have been thousands more. Other artists interested in the topic may have taken it as an intriguing challenge to make one. Some do not even care about making circles, they just want to create art.

Firefox symbol was created in a field by the Oregon State University Linux Users group in 2006, celebrating a popular web browser. Corn mazes remain popular during the fall. One German town created Asterix and Obelix characters from French comic books in a field of corn in 2009.

Yet, many crop circles remain unexplained. Many crop circles show no signs of human contact. The most bizarre trait of a crop circle is that the crops are not broken when laid down.

Australian Independent Crop Circle Research Megan Heazlewood said that crop circles can appear on many different crop types from silverbeet to rice paddies. She is most intrigued by canola field crop circles because canola stalks snap like celery at 45 degrees, yet they did not break when bent 90 degrees in crop circles.

A reporter from The Conversation also points out that most hoaxers claiming to have created crop circles are unable to reproduce the results or ignore most questions when requested proof of how they did it with boards and rope (the method hoaxers use).

In 1991 a biophysicist Dr. William C. Levengood studying the stalks from the crop circles and found anomalies in the first node of each plant that can only be explained by either electromagnetic or microwave energy exposure from a technology that humanity does to possess (at least to the public’s knowledge).

In 1992, Michael Chorost led an investigation named “Project Agnus” that also found anomalies in the soil of the crops.

All of which still points to potential involvement of not Earthly forces in making the crop circles.

Crop Circle In An Early Newspaper?

Some believe that the first circle was written about in a 1678 woodcut of the mowing devil. The illustration shows a horned-man mowing a field in a circular motion. Others say it originated from a folklore that tells a story of an English farmer who in a fight with a farm worker said out loud that he would rather pay the devil himself to take care of the job. The image does not represent a crop circle by definition because the crop stalks are shown being cut down, not laid down.

Two-Months Crop Circle Investigation In England

(The rest of the article contains spoilers from A Field Full of Secrets).

Maxwell stepped into a crop circle for the first time in 2008 with a friend Dax Phelan who filmed everything, and his life was changed forever. As soon as he entered the crop circle, he says he felt being watched; and that it was not a part of this world, even though his friends were not as convinced.

Maxwell became hooked on looking for answers about what crop circles are, not satisfied with the mainstream “hoax” answer explaining all of the formations.

Maxwell’s answer to what crop circles are is unique. Looking at the fact that the designs became more complex every year,  and after visiting 42 crop circles during his two-months stay in England, he says that he has more questions than answers.

He went into many fields himself, saw the damaged nodes of the crops done in the way that according to the experts in the movie no hoaxer can do. He also returned many nights to try to catch any hoaxers at work, but only saw backpackers who were camping out in the middle of one crop circle.

Maxwell and his team bumped into a man Peter Sorenson who was said to claim some involvement in making the Pi crop circle, yet he refused to say or admit anything on camera about it. Instead he was shown teaching children how to make crop circles with a rope and board method. The designs came out looking imperfect.

Maxwell saw fields that was created by a hoaxer like Sorenson claims to be; and the way the stalks are broken and not bend is seen clearly in the finished documentary.

Not finding real answers, Maxwell got an idea that the crop circles are getting more intricate and larger (up to ¾ mile across) because “we are being taught a language.”

He tried to make his own circle with encoded Morse code and had Sorenson create it in the field to send a message; but the message was either not received or misunderstood.

After a two-months journey, the harvest season put the crop circle research that year to and end, and Maxwell went home to Los Angeles with more questions.

Crop Circle Images As Blueprints

The only real clue Maxwell saw was the Pi crop circle and its built-in math. This is how his idea was born that each crop circle is a blueprint to be decoded.

“Some researchers believe that the formation that we see are effectively two dimensional representations of three-dimensional objects. And that if we could learn to create these three-dimensional objects, they might actually be showing us a new technology, be it antigravity, be it free energy…”

“The universe does not run on gasoline,” Maxwell says.

It runs on free energy or a different type of energy yet unknown by our technology. Maxwell is hoping the crop circles may help.

A crop circle blueprint material from A Field Full of Secrets footage.

3D model made on the computer using a combination of crop circles such as the image above.

He paired up with a ‘mysterious inventor’ Nikola Romanski after the man emailed him with the information to use these crop circle blueprints to build a UFO. This is the very first time this was attempted to be done.

Romanski used AutoCAD to create a 3D model of one of the crop circles from 2009. It looked like “some kind of machine.”

He said it looked like a “power plant for alternative zero-point energy…some people may call it a light-speed engine.”

Romanski used eleven crop circle designs to create a model that he and Maxwell tried to build. The job proved to be harder than anticipated and they had to consult a team of engineers and to outsource the making of many parts.

The closest the got was creating a plasma flame, which was like the heart of the engine, and shocking to Maxwell friends’ proof that this blueprint can create a real device.

Unfortunately, they ran out of money the investors have put in and needed about $100,000 more and another six months of work.

Not The Only One…

Maxwell decided to accept that the project has failed and stop everything. However, he soon discovered that he is not the only person who has attempted to use crop circles as a free-energy device blueprint. There was at least one more person doing the same.

With reignated hope, Maxwell flew to Hawaii to meet with Nassim Haramein, the founder of The Resonance Project. The first thing he asked him was if he had wasted his time building a UFO.

“Absolutely not. In science, there is no such thing as a waste of time. Edison made thousands of lightbulbs before the one that worked.”

Haramein also reminded Maxwell that the scientific community did not believe that airplanes could fly until it was done.

“When I look at your guys’ device and what you extrapolated from the crop circle, I think you guys were right on track…that the fundamental spin is important…When you understand that, you can build devices to interact with the universe.”

The movie also has interviews of various crop circle researchers, many of whom believe non-Earthly makers of the crop circles are possible; and that E.T. beings may be creating them to help and work with human higher consciousness.

“What I was trying to do was to prove to myself and to my friend and to my daughter that there’s wonder in the world.”

Sounds like Maxwell is not giving up anytime soon; and perhaps his project will fuel ideas from others.

See the movie trailer “A Field Full of Secrets” below or rent it or buy it here.

• ufoholic.com

{ https://paranormalium.bosniapress.net/ }

Alaska: A Whole Town Witness UFO Circling Over Them

The people of Seward, Alaska saw some strange things happening over 30 years ago when a big spaceship circled their town for hours with intense lights.

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }

Two More Disc-eyed Giants of Mont’e Prama Found in Sardinia!

Their purpose is currently unknown, but two more disc-eyed giants of Mont’e Prama have been unearthed on Sardinia. The Mont’e Prama Iron Age burial necropolis on the Italian island of Sardinia has for the last 50 years been the source of a great archaeological mystery. The site was first discovered by local farmers in March 1974 on farmland near Mont'e Prama, in the commune of Cabras, in central-western Sardinia, Italy. It was here that the so-called “Giants of Mont'e Prama” were discovered. This collection of ancient stone giant sculptures, with large disc-eyes, are also known as “boxer statues.”

The head of one of the newly found boxers is here on the right, with a visible chin and thick broken neck.

( Italian Ministry of Culture )

While it is understood that the giants of Mont’e Prama were created by people by the Nuragic culture of ancient Sardinia, the purpose of these gargantuan monuments is currently unknown. However, on Saturday afternoon, Italy’s Ministry of Culture announced that “two more giant naked torsos” had been identified by researchers at Mont’e Prama. In this instance, the two giants were covered with a large shield which has allowed the researchers to date them precisely to between 950 to 730 BC.

Emerging in the Early Bronze Age, Nuragic civilization derives its name from Sardinia’s “ nuraghe,” which are stone fortresses with high towers. Most of these structures were raised around 1800 BC and today no less than 7,000 nuraghes are peppered across the ancient Sardinian landscape. It was from these stone forts that the Nuragic people defended their rule over Sardinia until the 2nd century AD.

• The Mysterious Nuragic Civilization of Sardinia
• Santu Antine, Sardinia: A Megalithic House Built for a King?

This Nuragic civilization nuraghe stone fortress on Sardinia was built by the same people who made the mysterious giants of Mont’e Prama.

( franke 182  / Adobe Stock)

Many of you will already have noticed that the Sardinian nuraghe resembles, and perhaps functioned similarly to, the 2nd century Pictish brochs of northern Scotland. Day to day these stone towers housed community chiefs and their families, and they became community shelters for people and animals while under attack from rivalling tribes and foreign invaders.

Italy’s Cultural Minister, Dario Franceschini, said the two giant stone torsos are officially called “Cavalupo-type boxers,” which means they are either warriors, archers or boxers with shields and armed gloves. The culture ministry’s superintendent for southern Sardinia, Monica Stochino, said the statues are made of limestone which is soft and fragile. Therefore, the site archaeologists now need more time to excavate the two huge torsos from the surrounding sediment which has set like clay.

Some of the giants of Mont’e Prama had curved stone shields over their heads and this was also true of both of the recently discovered giants.

(DedaloNur / CC BY-SA 3.0 )

An article in Arkeonews explains that since the site’s discovery in 1974 “thousands of fragments” of giant human figures have been recovered at Mont’e Prama. While their original purpose remains veiled in mystery, so far, archaeologists have reassembled about 40 statues and while no one is complete each measures over 2 meters (6.56 feet) tall. Furthermore, they all represent warriors, archers, or nuraghe boxers.

Giant Warriors, Archers, and Boxers

Archaeologists believe the giant’s disc-shaped eyes and eastern-style garments probably depicted Nuragic cultural mythological heroes who were buried to symbolically guard the sepulchral site . However, other archaeologists consider the statues as representing deities from the Nuragic pantheon. However, these two interpretations are relatively limited and don’t consider inspiration from the land of the living first.

• 5 Must See Megaliths of the Mysterious Nuragic People
• Nuraghe Palmavera: Examining the Legends of a Mysterious Civilization

Polynesian Easter Island , formerly known as Rapa Nui , is famed for its monumental giant statues called moai which were created during the 13th-16th centuries. According to writer Jo Anne Van Tilburg these carved human figures with oversize heads are believed to be “the living faces ( aringa ora ) of deified ancestors ( aringa ora ata tepuna )”. Perhaps the giants of Mont’e Prama, Sardinia also reflect the bodies and faces of the ancestors who taught them how to survive on an ocean locked island?

We will never know for sure what the large-eyed giants represented, but as long as archaeologists continue to excavate at Mont’e Prama in Sardinia it is only a matter of time before more statues will surface, adding to the emerging army of giants.

• Top image: Two more stone giants of Mont’e Prama from the Iron Age have been unearthed in Sardinia. Source: mont’e prama

By Ashley Cowie

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/general }

8,000-Year-Old Yarmukian Mother Goddess Unearthed

An 8,000-year-old "Mother Goddess" figurine has been uncovered at a Neolithic site in Israel. Why then, does she have “coffee-shaped” eyes?

Located at the foot of the Golan Heights in the Jordan Valley area of north-eastern Israel, the Sha'ar HaGolan kibbutz archaeological site is situated less than 1 km (2/3 of a mile) from the border with Jordan. It was here that archaeologists recently unearthed the broken 20-centimeter (7.87 inch) long figurine.

Dating back 8,000 years, this 'Mother Goddess' figurine was created by the Yarmukian culture. While Israeli archaeologists are describing the goddess as having “coffee-bean” shaped eyes, she has nothing to do with coffee. In fact, coffee can be traced to the mid-15th century in Yemen . So what then does this ancient mistress of the Levantine otherworld represent?

Red Is The Color Of Love, And Sex

The Neolithic Yarmukian culture of the ancient Levant is regarded as the first culture in prehistoric Israel. This attribution is given because Yarmukians were the first people in Levant to make clay pottery. And, similarly to later Neolithic groups in Ireland and Scotland, Yarmukian ceramics feature lozenge, herringbone and linear diagonal lines and patterns.

• New Type of Homo Species in Levant Changes Human History Forever
• Did Ancient Humans Acquire Nautical Knowledge by Sailing the Prehistoric Megalakes of Africa?

Part of the extensive Sha'ar HaGolan excavation area.

(Yosef Garfinkel / CC BY-SA -3.0 )

Judea district archaeologist Anna Eirikh-Rose from Israeli Antiquity Authority serves as co-director of the dig at Sha'ar HaGolan kibbutz and she told J-Post the 20-centimeter goddess figurine was excavated next to the wall of a house covered with “a red bottomed bracelet.” Depending on agricultural success and the fertilization of people and animals for sustained survival, Yarmukians worshipped a “ Mother Goddess ” and red, like in most ancient cultures, represented fertility and all things sexual/reproductive.

The Largest Mother Goddess Ever Discovered In Israel

The Museum of Yarmukian Culture at the kibbutz archaeological site exhibits all of the artifacts recovered from this vast 20-hectare Neolithic excavation zone. The site was first excavated in 1949, and again in 2004. At these previous excavations researchers identified planned streets, courtyards and houses, as well as smaller mother goddess figurines with incised pebble faces, and further so-called “eye figurines.”

• Scientists Track Silver Trade From Trojan War to Roman Republic
• Sea-Farers from the Levant the first to set foot in the Americas: proto-Sinaitic inscriptions found along the coast of Uruguay

Shaar Hagolan Mother Goddess clay figurine previously found at the site.

( CC BY SA 3.0 )

The dig’s current co-director, Dr. Julien Vieugue, describes the newly excavated goddess figurine as “a large, seated woman with big hips, a unique pointed hat and what is known as ‘coffee-bean’ eyes and a big nose.” She has one hand on her hip and the other is under her breast. Vieugue said the artifact represents one of the “largest examples'' of the goddess figurine ever found from the Yarmukian culture.”

A Cult Fertility Icon, Or A Recognized State Goddess

While many similar Yarmukian sites have been identified in the Levant, by a long shot, Sha’ar Hagolan is the largest and the most probable center of Yarmukian culture. Eirikh-Rose says that 8,000 years ago the inhabitants of Sha’ar Hagolan began mass-producing pottery. Now, it’s the primary goal of the archaeologists to better understand the “origin and mechanism of development of the pottery production” at the site.

Eirikh-Rose said the figurine was created by wrapping and layering clay around a central cylindrical core. The archaeologist added that it was anything but easy to make. The artifact is currently undergoing residue analysis which will eventually reveal what type of clay was used to make the goddess idol. Ultimately the researchers aim to find out if this particular Mother Goddess was a cultic icon, or a deity from an already established religion.

A close up of the head of one of the Yarmukian figures, showing the ‘coffee bean eyes’ shape.

(Yosef Garfinkel, CC BY-SA 3.0 )

Returning To Those Problematic “Coffee-Bean” Shaped Eyes

We should finish this piece with a return to the figurine’s so-called “coffee-bean” shaped eyes. One could perhaps better understand this “coffee-bean” reference to the symbolism of the figurine had it been discovered at a medieval Yemen site, or in 17th century South America where the Mother Goddess was worshipped as “ Pachamama” - the World-Mother and controller of fertility.

For the sake of clarity, Israeli archaeologists should perhaps change the name “coffee” to what the eyes actually represent. They should be called “wheat or barley-shaped eyes,” for these two details represent the unplanted wheat or barley kernel, and the promise of new life tomorrow.

• Top image: 8,000-year-old Mother Goddess figurine excavated at Sha’ar HaGolan, Israel Source: Anna Eirikh-Rose / Jerusalem Post

By Ashley Cowie

{ https://www.ancient-origins.net/ }

NASA’s Webb Reveals Steamy Atmosphere of Distant Planet in Detail

• Webb’s enormous mirror, precise instruments joined forces to capture most detailed measurements of starlight filtering through atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system to date

• The spectrum of light – which contains information about the makeup of a planetary atmosphere 1,150 light-years away – reveals distinct signature of water

• The strength of the signal that Webb detected hints at the significant role the telescope will play in the search for potentially habitable planets in coming years

• Webb’s powerful new view also shows evidence of haze and clouds that previous studies of this planet did not detect

En español

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the distinct signature of water, along with evidence for clouds and haze, in the atmosphere surrounding a hot, puffy gas giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star.

The observation, which reveals the presence of specific gas molecules based on tiny decreases in the brightness of precise colors of light, is the most detailed of its kind to date, demonstrating Webb’s unprecedented ability to analyze atmospheres hundreds of light-years away.

While the Hubble Space Telescope has analyzed numerous exoplanet atmospheres over the past two decades, capturing the first clear detection of water in 2013, Webb’s immediate and more detailed observation marks a giant leap forward in the quest to characterize potentially habitable planets beyond Earth.

WASP-96 b is one of more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets in the Milky Way. Located roughly 1,150 light-years away in the southern-sky constellation Phoenix, it represents a type of gas giant that has no direct analog in our solar system. With a mass less than half that of Jupiter and a diameter 1.2 times greater, WASP-96 b is much puffier than any planet orbiting our Sun. And with a temperature greater than 1000°F, it is significantly hotter. WASP-96 b orbits extremely close to its Sun-like star, just one-ninth of the distance between Mercury and the Sun, completing one circuit every 3½ Earth-days.

The combination of large size, short orbital period, puffy atmosphere, and lack of contaminating light from objects nearby in the sky makes WASP-96 b an ideal target for atmospheric observations.

On June 21, Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) measured light from the WASP-96 system for 6.4 hours as the planet moved across the star. The result is a light curve showing the overall dimming of starlight during the transit, and a transmission spectrum revealing the brightness change of individual wavelengths of infrared light between 0.6 and 2.8 microns. 

While the light curve confirms properties of the planet that had already been determined from other observations – the existence, size, and orbit of the planet – the transmission spectrum reveals previously hidden details of the atmosphere: the unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence of clouds that were thought not to exist based on prior observations.

A transmission spectrum is made by comparing starlight filtered through a planet’s atmosphere as it moves across the star to the unfiltered starlight detected when the planet is beside the star. Researchers are able to detect and measure the abundances of key gases in a planet’s atmosphere based on the absorption pattern – the locations and heights of peaks on the graph. In the same way that people have distinctive fingerprints and DNA sequences, atoms and molecules have characteristic patterns of wavelengths that they absorb.

The spectrum of WASP-96 b captured by NIRISS is not only the most detailed near-infrared transmission spectrum of an exoplanet atmosphere captured to date, but it also covers a remarkably wide range of wavelengths, including visible red light and a portion of the spectrum that has not previously been accessible from other telescopes (wavelengths longer than 1.6 microns). This part of the spectrum is particularly sensitive to water as well as other key molecules like oxygen, methane, and carbon dioxide, which are not immediately obvious in the WASP-96 b spectrum but which should be detectable in other exoplanets planned for observation by Webb.

Researchers will be able to use the spectrum to measure the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere, constrain the abundance of various elements like carbon and oxygen, and estimate the temperature of the atmosphere with depth. They can then use this information to make inferences about the overall make-up of the planet, as well as how, when, and where it formed. The blue line on the graph is a best-fit model that takes into account the data, the known properties of WASP-96 b and its star (e.g., size, mass, temperature), and assumed characteristics of the atmosphere.

The exceptional detail and clarity of these measurements is possible because of Webb’s state-of-the-art design. Its 270-square-foot gold-coated mirror collects infrared light efficiently. Its precision spectrographs spread light out into rainbows of thousands of infrared colors. And its sensitive infrared detectors measure extremely subtle differences in brightness. NIRISS is able to detect color differences of only about one thousandth of a micron (the difference between green and yellow is about 50 microns), and differences in the brightness between those colors of a few hundred parts per million.

In addition, Webb’s extreme stability and its orbital location around Lagrange Point 2 roughly a million miles away from the contaminating effects of Earth’s atmosphere makes for an uninterrupted view and clean data that can be analyzed relatively quickly.

The extraordinarily detailed spectrum – made by simultaneously analyzing 280 individual spectra captured over the observation – provides just a hint of what Webb has in store for exoplanet research. Over the coming year, researchers will use spectroscopy to analyze the surfaces and atmospheres of several dozen exoplanets, from small rocky planets to gas- and ice-rich giants. Nearly one-quarter of Webb’s Cycle 1 observation time is allocated to studying exoplanets and the materials that form them.

This NIRISS observation demonstrates that Webb has the power to characterize the atmospheres of exoplanets—including those of potentially habitable planets—in exquisite detail.

• Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

NASA Headquarters oversees the mission for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages Webb for the agency and oversees work on the mission performed by the Space Telescope Science Institute, Northrop Grumman, and other mission partners. In addition to Goddard, several NASA centers contributed to the project, including the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston; Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California; Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; and others.

NIRISS was contributed by the Canadian Space Agency. The instrument was designed and built by Honeywell in collaboration with the Université de Montréal and the National Research Council Canada.

Download full-resolution, uncompressed versions and supporting visuals of this and other "Webb First Images" from the Space Telescope Science Institute: 

• https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2022/news-2022-032

{ https://www.nasa.gov/ }

SPECTACULAIR: DIT ZIJN DE FOTO’S VAN DE JAMES WEBB-TELESCOOP (WE KIJKEN 13 MILJARD JAAR TERUG IN DE TIJD)

Jeannette Kras

Daar zijn ze dan: de eerste vijf kleurenfoto’s van de James Webb-telescoop. De opvolger van Hubble stelt niet teleur. De afbeeldingen, waarmee je ’13 miljard jaar terug in de tijd kunt kijken’, zijn indrukwekkend.

NASA lanceerde op eerste kerstdag vorig jaar samen met het Europese en Canadese Ruimteagentschap (de ESA en de CSA) de James Webb-ruimtetelescoop, die de ‘verste en scherpste infraroodbeelden van het vroege universum’ kan maken. James Webb produceert niet alleen vele malen scherpere foto’s dan zijn voorganger Hubble, maar doet dat ook veel sneller.

Revolutionair
“De James Webb-telescoop gaat ons zo veel antwoorden geven. Zelfs antwoorden op vragen die we nog niet eens kennen”, vertelt Günther Hasing, wetenschapsdirecteur van de ESA, enthousiast tijdens de onthulling van de foto’s. Josef Aschbacher, directeur-generaal van de ESA vult aan: “De ontwikkeling van de James Webb-telescoop is meer dan alleen wetenschap. Het is bovenal een fantastische samenwerking van internationale ruimtevaartorganisaties.”

“De nieuwe James Webb-telescoop is revolutionair, een enorme sprong voorwaarts”, vindt ook NASA-topman Bill Nelson. “We gaan dingen zien, die ik nooit voor mogelijk had gehouden. Met de infraroodtechnologie kijken we dwars door stofwolken heen naar sterrenstelsels en zwarte gaten. Het heelal is 13,8 miljard jaar oud. Wij kunnen nu 13,5 miljard jaar terug in de tijd kijken. Dit licht heeft al die tijd met 300.000 kilometer per uur door het heelal gereisd en valt nu op onze nieuwe telescoop. Onvoorstelbaar, maar waar.”

Nederlands tintje
De feestelijke onthulling van de foto’s heeft ook een Nederlands tintje. Hoogleraar Moleculaire Astrofysica Ewine van Dishoeck (Sterrewacht Leiden, NOVA) vertelt tijdens een persbijeenkomst dat NOVA (de Nederlandse Onderzoeksschool Voor Astronomie) een bijdrage heeft geleverd aan de hardware van het MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument). Dit is een camera en een spectrograaf die middellange tot lange infraroodstraling observeert. MIRI neemt in het bijzonder licht van langere golflengtes waar. “Het was een spannend moment of MIRI wel koud zou worden. Anders zouden we alleen maar ruis kunnen meten”, vertelt Van Dishoeck. “Dat dat lukte, was voor ons een enorme mijlpaal.” NOVA was verantwoordelijk voor de hoofdoptiek van de MIRI-spectrometer. Ook onder meer TNO werkte mee.

Een zandkorrel
Met hulp van MIRI konden de eerste foto’s tot stand komen, waarvan de Amerikaanse president Joe Biden gisteren de eerste al onthulde. “Deze afbeelding omvat een deel van het heelal ter grootte van een zandkorrel op armlengte. Het is een piepkleine splinter van het enorme universum”, zei Bill Nelson van de NASA. “Deze missie is mogelijk gemaakt door menselijk vernuft.” Het publiek over de hele wereld was onder de indruk van het beeld van dat verre cluster van sterrenstelsels.

Wetenschap met het blote oog
Maar zijn zulke foto’s nu enkel voor het publiek mooi of hebben sterrenkundigen er ook echt wat aan? De aanwezige wetenschappers op de persbijeenkomst stellen dat die foto’s ook voor de wetenschap van grote waarde zijn. “Voor je een spectrum kunt nemen, moet je het eerst vinden. Daar zijn die beelden wel voor nodig”, aldus Paul van der Werf, hoogleraar Extragalactische Astrofysica bij de Sterrewacht van de Universiteit Leiden. “Je moet een gebied aan de hemel afzoeken, daar zijn die beelden absoluut noodzakelijk voor. Ze moeten zo gevoelig en groot mogelijk zijn. Dat het een mooi plaatje is, is mooi meegenomen, maar dat is natuurlijk niet waarom we het doen. Er zijn duidelijke wetenschappelijke redenen, zeker met diepe velden (deep fields). Je moet de context hebben. Je kunt niet zomaar je spectrum op een punt richten en weten wat er aan de hand is.” Spectra zijn (elektromagnetische) golven, die worden opgepikt door de telescoop, die ze weer omzet in beeld. Van Dishoeck vult aan: “Het is een multi-color-image. Dan kun je direct met je oog al wetenschap doen. Als je een plaatje neemt in verschillende kleuren geeft dat al een heleboel informatie.”

De foto’s 
Maar waar het vandaag om draait, zijn natuurlijk de foto’s zelf. “De vijf foto’s zijn het resultaat van een week scannen door de Webb-ruimtetelescoop. Over een week hebben we dubbel zoveel data en foto’s. Dit gaat het hele jaar zo door”, klinkt het verheugd.

SMACS 0723
Over de eerste foto, van SMACS 0723, schreven we vanochtend al. De afbeelding toont een cluster van sterrenstelsels, zoals het er 4,6 miljard jaar geleden uitzag. De totale massa van alles wat in dit cluster aanwezig is, zorgt voor een kromming van het licht als ware het een vergrootglas: het licht van veel verder gelegen, zwakkere sterrenstelsels wordt erdoor vergroot. Het beeld werd in 12,5 uur gemaakt door NIRCam, de camera van James Webb. De sterrenstelsels op de foto stralen licht uit dat in sommige gevallen 13 miljard jaar oud is. Daarmee zijn het de oudste objecten die ooit zijn vastgelegd.

Foto: NASA, ESA, CSA, en STScI

De Carinanevel
Hieronder zie je een spiksplinternieuwe afbeelding van de Carinanevel, die 7600 lichtjaar van de aarde is verwijderd. In NGC3372, zoals de nevel officieel heet, staan twee van de zwaarste en helderste sterren van het melkwegstelsel.

De Webb-telescoop laat de Carinanevel zien als nooit tevoren. Vele sterren die nooit eerder zijn waargenomen, staan nu scherp op de foto. We zien jonge sterren die gaswolken uitstoten. Er is veel gas en stof te zien, waar nieuwe sterren worden gevormd. Elk stipje op de foto is een ster, net als onze zon. Hubble maakte al prachtige foto’s van de Carinanevel, maar de Webb maakt er een nog veel gedetailleerder en mooier plaatje van.

Foto: NASA, ESA, CSA, en STScI

WASP-96b
James Webb maakte ook een spectrum van exoplaneet WASP-96b. Deze planeet staat op 1150 lichtjaar van de aarde en draait in iets minder dan 3,5 dag om zijn moederster. Bijzonder is dat de atmosfeer van de exoplaneet wolkenvrij is. De exoplaneet is ongeveer net zo groot als Jupiter en erg heet. Spectrumanalyse van deze planeet maakt duidelijk dat er veel water aanwezig is in de vorm van waterdamp.

Exoplaneet WASP 96b

foto: NASA, ESA, CSA, en STScI

NGC 3132
Op 2000 lichtjaar van de aarde vinden we een planetaire nevel, die in het Engels ook wel Eight-burst Nebula wordt genoemd. De nevel (een groeiende gaswolk rond een stervende ster) breidt zich momenteel uit met 14,5 kilometer per seconde. Webb geeft astronomen een schat aan nieuwe informatie over de samenstelling van planetaire nevels zoals NGC 3132. Uit wat voor moleculen is deze gigantische gaswolk bijvoorbeeld opgebouwd?

foto: NASA, ESA, CSA, en STScI

Kwintet van Stephan
Dit is een groep sterrenstelsels in het sterrenbeeld Pegasus. Het dichtstbijzijnde is NGC 7320C op 39 miljoen lichtjaar afstand. De overige vier sterrenstelsels liggen veel verder weg, namelijk op 290 miljoen lichtjaar van de aarde. Er is een actief zwart gat in deze foto verscholen. De moleculaire stoffen die in de buurt rondvliegen, kunnen worden geïdentificeerd door spectrumanalyse van de Webb-telescoop.

Foto: NASA, ESA, CSA, en STScI

Bronmateriaal:

• "Alle foto's in groot formaat" - NASA
• Persgesprek eerste resultaten James Webb Space Telescope Persconferentie ESA/NASA https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages
• Afbeelding bovenaan dit artikel: NASA

{ https://www.scientias.nl/ }

NASA COMPLETELY BOTCHED THE JAMES WEBB LIVESTREAM

WHAT A HOT MESS.

FUTURISM

{ https://futurism.com/the-byte }

NASA toont nieuwe spectaculaire beelden van James Webb-telescoop: bekijk ze hier

NASA heeft nieuwe beelden vrijgegeven van de James Webb-ruimtetelescoop. De indrukwekkende beelden volgen op de historische eerste kleurenfoto van de telescoop, die gisterenavond al werd gedeeld door de Amerikaanse ruimtevaartorganisatie. Bekijk hieronder de spectaculaire beelden.

Yorick Dupon en Ielse Broeksteeg 

Bron: NASA, ANP, Reuters, The Verge, Big Thing, Science Alert

Een landschap van "bergen" en "valleien”, gespikkeld met glinsterende sterren dat eigenlijk de rand is van een nabijgelegen, jong, stervormingsgebied genaamd NGC 3324 in de Carina Nevel.  © AFP

Op de nieuwe beelden zien we onder meer Stephan’s Quintet, een visuele groepering van vijf sterrenstelsels, in een heel nieuw licht. Het is het grootste beeld dat de telescoop tot nu toe heeft gemaakt, ongeveer zo groot als een vijfde van de diameter van de maan. Het bevat meer dan 150 miljoen pixels en is opgebouwd uit bijna 1.000 afzonderlijke beeldbestanden.

Lees ook

• 

  James Webb-telescoop loopt schade op door micrometeoriet

• 

  PREMIUM

  Plots halen Russische kosmonauten provocerende vlag boven: dreigt ook Koude Oorlog op 400 km hoogte?

Stephan’s Quintet, een visuele groepering van vijf sterrenstelsels.  © AP

Bekijk hieronder de nieuwe beelden:

© AP

De ‘zuidelijke Ringnevel’, gefotografeerd door twee Webb-instrumenten (links door Nircam op wat kortere golflengten en rechts door Miri op langere golflengten), is een langzaam uitdijende schil van sterrengas op een afstand van ongeveer 2.000 lichtjaar (één lichtjaar is zo’n 9,5 biljoen kilometer).

De nevel is duizenden jaren geleden uitgestoten door de stervende ster in het centrum. In zo’n afkoelende nevel ontstaan minuscule stofdeeltjes en verschillende moleculen, waaronder koolwaterstofverbindingen die aan de basis liggen van het leven. Over een kleine vijf miljard jaar zal ook onze eigen zon opzwellen tot een rode reuzenster en net zo’n uitdijende nevel het heelal in blazen.

© AFP

Het lijken oranje-blauwe penseelstreken op een impressionistisch schilderij, maar het zijn wervelende gas- en stofwolken in de Carinanevel, op 7.600 lichtjaar afstand. In de koude, stoffige krochten van dit nevelcomplex ontstaan nieuwe, zware sterren; een geboorteproces dat door Webb in detail bestudeerd kan worden, omdat infrarode straling dwars door de meeste stofwolken heendringt.

Net als op de andere Webb-foto’s zijn de kleuren niet echt (het menselijk oog kan geen infrarode straling waarnemen); met verschillende kleuren worden verschillende infrarode golflengten in beeld gebracht.

© AFP

‘Stephan’s Quintet' heet deze groep van vijf sterrenstelsels op 290 miljoen lichtjaar afstand, naar de Franse astronoom Édouard Stephan, die het groepje in 1877 ontdekte. Vier van de vijf stelsels zijn gevangen in een onderlinge zwaartekrachtdans. Getijdenkrachten leiden tot schokgolven en het ontstaan van talloze nieuwe sterren in losgerukte en weggeslingerde slierten van gas en stof, die op de infrarode Webb-foto’s goed zichtbaar zijn.

Eerste foto

Het eerste beeld van de James Web Space Telescope (JWST)  © NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, via REUTERS

De eerste foto van de nieuwe James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is gisteren vrijgegeven. De Amerikaanse president Joe Biden deelde maandagavond rond 23 uur Belgische tijd de eerste kleurenafbeelding van duizenden sterrenstelsels die miljarden jaren oud zijn. “De James Webb-telescoop gaat ons veel leren over het universum, bijvoorbeeld over wat er net na de big bang gebeurde”, vertelt wetenschapsexpert Martijn Peters in de studio van HLN LIVE.

De JWST werd op kerstdag 2021 de ruimte in gestuurd en legde daarna een afstand van 1,5 miljoen kilometer af. De telescoop kon deze foto vastleggen na een intens proces van afstellen en configureren. Zo moesten de kenmerkende gouden spiegels van de telescoop in de ruimte uitgevouwen worden en stuk per stuk in de juiste hoek worden gezet. De instrumenten werden bovendien afgekoeld, één ervan tot een temperatuur van 266 graden Celsius onder nul.

“Nieuwe kijk op ons universum”

Als eerste test werd de James Webb gericht op een stukje hemel dat de naam SMACS 0723 draagt. “Nu kijken we naar een stukje aan de hemel dat ongeveer een zandkorreltje groot lijkt en daarin zien we plots duizenden sterrenstelsels verschijnen”, vertelt Peters bij HLN LIVE.

De Amerikaanse president Joe Biden (linksvoor) en vicepresident Kamala Harris (rechtsvoor) bekijken de eerste beelden van de James Webb Space Telescoop in het Witte Huis.  © AFP

Het waren de Amerikaanse president Joe Biden en vicepresident Kamala Harris die dit eerste beeld van de Webb-telescoop onthulden tijdens een persconferentie. Biden noemde het beeld en het werk van de telescoop “een nieuwe kijk op ons universum”.

Sterrenstelsels die nooit eerder werden waargenomen

SMACS 0723 bevat sterrenstelsels die zo massief zijn dat ze licht afbuigen. Daardoor zijn er objecten te zien die nog verder verwijderd liggen van ons. SMACS 0723 is vanop de zuidelijke hemisfeer van onze planeet (en dus niet vanuit België) te zien in het sterrenbeeld Vliegende Vis of Volans.

Vele van de duizenden sterrenstelsels die te zien zijn op de foto werden voor het eerst vastgelegd door de JWST. Het gaat in sommige gevallen om de zwakste infrarode straling die we ooit hebben waargenomen. De foto is een samenstelling van verschillende beelden die de JWST heeft vastgelegd op verschillende golflengtes. Het resultaat was een composiet in grijswaarden, die met filters werden ingekleurd.

“Grote impact binnen de wetenschap”

Dat de JWST succesvol gelanceerd en ingesteld werd zonder al te veel problemen, is op zich al een mirakel te noemen. Wat we vanaf nu dankzij de ruimtetelescoop kunnen waarnemen, zal voor een hoop nieuwe kennis zorgen. “Alle wetenschappelijke data gaat binnenkort vrijgegeven worden en onderzoekers gaan er los op gaan. Ze gaan het gebruiken om te achterhalen wat daar gebeurt, hoe bepaalde sterren zich vormen en wat er gebeurde na de oerknal. Er gaat massaal veel onderzoek gedaan worden op deze data”, vertelt Peters.

De JWST kan ook licht waarnemen dat bijna net zou oud is als het universum zelf. “Dat konden we met de Hubble-telescoop niet waarnemen, maar wel met de speciale instrumenten van de James Webb-telescoop”, aldus Peters.

Daarnaast zullen we naar de geboorte van sterren kunnen kijken, maar ook naar planeten rond andere sterren dan onze zon. Dat kan helpen in de zoektocht naar leven op andere plaatsen, vertelt onze wetenschapsexpert: “We gaan ook kunnen te weten komen of planeten atmosferen hebben die leefbaar zijn en of er de bouwstenen aanwezig zijn voor leven.”

Sterrenkundigen zijn opgetogen over de eerste beelden. “Het is fantastisch spannend allemaal, en ook heel emotioneel”, aldus Ewine van Dishoeck van de Sterrewacht in Leiden. Van Dishoeck is de Europese hoofdonderzoeker van Miri, een van de waarnemingsinstrumenten van Webb.

Opvolger van Hubble-ruimtetelescoop

De JWST is honderd keer gevoeliger dan de beroemde ruimtetelescoop Hubble, die zijn einde nadert. De James Webb kan zo licht detecteren dat één miljard jaar ouder is dan wat de Hubble kon vastleggen. Ook vallen er verschillende objecten te onderscheiden die op foto’s van de Hubble eruit zagen als één object.

Om dit eerste beeld te creëren, verzamelde de Webb-telescoop gedurende 12,5 uur licht van verschillende golflengten. De Hubble had weken de tijd nodig om foto’s te maken van de SMACS 0723-cluster aan sterrenstelsels.

De James Webb heeft achttien zeshoekige spiegels die aan elkaar zitten, maar los van elkaar kunnen bewegen om scherp te stellen. De spiegel is gemaakt van beryllium, met daarbovenop een miniem laagje goud van 100 nanometer dik. Dat is duizend keer zo dun als een menselijk haar of een vel papier. Beryllium is een onedel metaal dat licht en sterk is en goed bestand tegen extreme kou. Het goud zorgt ervoor dat de spiegel beter in staat is infrarood licht te zien.

Het Amerikaans-Europees-Canadese project kost in totaal ongeveer 8 miljard euro. James Webb zou tot 20 jaar operationeel kunnen blijven. 

Lees ook:

• Plots halen Russische kosmonauten provocerende vlag boven: dreigt ook Koude Oorlog op 400 km hoogte? (+)

• “Wow!” Commentatoren schrikken zich een hoedje wanneer booster met 33 raketmotoren in vuurbal verandert bij SpaceX-test in Texas

• Marsrobot ontdekt stukje eigen afval op Mars: “Verrassing om dit hier te vinden”

Kijk ook:

• Wat maakt de James Webb-telescoop zo baanbrekend? NASA legt uit.

GERELATEERDE VIDEO'S, uitgekozen en gepost door peter2011

{ https://www.hln.be/ }

They’re Here! Check out the First Images from the James Webb Space Telescope!

This is it! Today, people worldwide were treated to the first images acquired by James Webb! After years of delays, we are finally seeing the sharpest images of the Universe taken by the most powerful telescope ever deployed. The world was given a sneak peek yesterday when President Biden, VP Kamala Harris, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, and other NASA officials released the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the Universe to date. But at 10:30 Eastern (07:30 Pacific), all the remaining first images were released!

The event was live-streamed by NASA TV, took place at NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center, and featured live streams from partner institutes in Canada, Europe, and across the U.S. This allowed the science teams that were responsible for the images to present them and explain how they illustrate the different science operations the JWST will perform throughout its mission.

Deep Field

The first image, Deep Field SMACS 0723, was presented by Jane Rigby, the Operations Project Scientist for the JWST mission. This image, which was revealed yesterday, showed a massive galaxy cluster and the gravitational lenses they produced (which magnified fainter galaxies in the distance). As Rigby explained, the images show galaxies as they appeared 13 billion years ago and spectra obtained by Webb‘s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec).

Another interesting tidbit was the speed at which Webb acquired this image and the spectra, which took mere hours. For comparison, Rigby explained that it took Hubble weeks to obtain a deep field image of this same galaxy cluster. The depth, detail, and speed with which Webb acquired this image showcase how the observatory is a fitting successor to the venerable Hubble and builds on its incredible legacy!

Exoplanet Atmosphere

The second image consisted of spectra obtained by Webb’s Near InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) from WASP-96b, a hot gas giant located about 1,000 light-years away. The Canadian Space Agency (CSA), which provides the NIRISS instrument, was originally intended to present the image. Due to a technical issue, the presentation was made by Knicole Colón, NASA’s Deputy Project Science for Exoplanet Science at NASA Goddard.

The spectrographic image shows the composition of WASP-9b’s atmosphere, which showed a significant amount of water vapor. As Colón explained, the data was obtained during a transit, when WASP-96b passed in front of its star (relative to Webb’s position). As light passed through the atmosphere, Webb characterized it using its advanced spectrographs. This image effectively showcases how Webb will characterize the atmospheres of planets, be they beyond the Solar System or inside it.

“A Dying Star”

Next was the side-by-image of the Southern Ring planetary nebula presented by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSI). The image shows the expanding cloud of gas surrounding a dying star (located approximately 2,000 light-years away from Earth) as it appeared to both the NIRCam and MIRI. The resulting images provide the most detailed view of this iconic nebula and the stellar remnant at its core – and in multiple wavelengths.

In the NIRCam image, a white dwarf appears to the lower left of the central white dwarf (which is much brighter) and is partially hidden by a diffraction spike. The same star appears brighter, larger, and redder in the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image, a visual effect caused by the thick layers of dust enshrouding the star. An easter egg was a background galaxy visible on the far left side of the image (seen through a relatively thin patch of nebular dust).

Infrared Galaxies

The fourth image was a composite of Stephan’s Quintet, a compact galaxy group located 290 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. Presented by the ESA science team at Europe’s Spaceport, the image beautifully illustrates the composition and tidal interactions of four galaxies in the process of merging. It was obtained by the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) and MIRI instruments, which captured light in multiple wavelengths and provided never-before-seen details about this galaxy group.

These include sparkling clusters of millions of young stars, starburst regions where new stars have just formed, and sweeping tails of gas, dust, and stars being pulled back and forth by the gravitational interaction of the galaxies. Most dramatically, Webb‘s MIRI instrument also captured the huge shock waves (the red and gold region surrounding the central pair of galaxies) produced by NGC 7318B smashing through the cluster.

Star Birth

Amber Straughn, the Deputy Project Scientist for the JWST mission at NASA Goddard, presented the fifth and final image. The image features the Carina Nebula, one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky, located about 7,600 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. Once again, this nebula was previously observed by Hubble, which provided a breathtaking look at a prominent star-forming region. But thanks to Webb‘s superior infrared imaging capabilities, this new image captures details that were previously invisible to astronomers.

For starters, there’s the central feature known as the “cosmic cliff,” which looks like a craggy mountainside. This is, in reality, the edge of the gigantic gaseous cavity carved within the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from the extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble (at the top of the image). This image also reveals previously-unseen newborn stars, a more detailed look at the gas and dust of the nebula, and the interaction between solar wind and gas clouds.

Thanks to the crisp resolution and unparalleled sensitivity of Webb‘s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), this image is already providing fresh insight into how “stellar nurseries” work and how new stars are born.

****************************

The development of this next-generation telescope officially began in 1996 as an intended successor to the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). These efforts were largely motivated by the success of the Hubble Deep Fields campaign, which provided the deepest views of the Universe to date. They were further motivated by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), which mapped the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) from 1989 to 1993. In short, these two surveys allowed astronomers to observe the early Universe and how it all began with the Big Bang.

Now they wanted to see what happened in-between, which included the formation of the first stars and galaxies and how they evolved into the large-scale cosmic structures we see today. After a redesign, multiple tests, delays, cost overruns, and the COVID pandemic, Webb finally launched from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guyana on Christmas Day in 2021. Once it reached orbit, the mission team spent weeks unfolding its sunshield, deploying and aligning its primary mirror, cooling the observatory to operational temperature, and navigating Webb to its orbit – about 1.5 million km (930,000 mi) from Earth.

Since then, the JWST has been conducting science operations and observing different cosmic objects and phenomena. These images provide a good preview of what we can expect in the coming years as more and more images are released. The event wrapped up with Administrator Bill Nelson praising the teams responsible for James Webb and the international cooperation that made it possible. He finished by repeating the words of the late and great Carl Sagan:

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”

• Further Reading: NASA

The post They’re Here! Check out the First Images from the James Webb Space Telescope! appeared first on Universe Today.

Source: 

• https://www.universetoday.com/156696/theyre-here-check-out-the-first-images-from-the-james-webb-space-telescope/

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

New James Webb Space Telescope Images Will Bring You To Tears July 2022

NASA has a provided a tantalizing teaser photo ahead of the highly-anticipated release next week of the first deep-space images from the James Webb Telescope — an instrument so powerful it can peer back into the origins of the universe. The $10 billion observatory — launched in December last year and now orbiting the Sun a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth — can look where no telescope has looked before thanks to its enormous primary mirror and instruments that focus on infrared, allowing it to peer through dust and gas.

The first fully formed pictures are set for release on July 12, but NASA provided an engineering test photo on Wednesday — the result of 72 exposures over 32 hours that shows a set of distant stars and galaxies. The image has some “rough-around-the-edges” qualities, NASA said in a statement, but is still “among the deepest images of the universe ever taken” and offers a “tantalizing glimpse” at what will be revealed in the coming weeks, months, and years. “When this image was taken, I was thrilled to clearly see all the detailed structure in these faint galaxies,” said Neil Rowlands, program scientist for Webb´s Fine Guidance Sensor at Honeywell Aerospace.

Jane Rigby, Webb´s operations scientist at NASA´s Goddard Space Flight Center, said the “faintest blobs in this image are exactly the types of faint galaxies that Webb will study in its first year of science operations.” NASA administrator Bill Nelson said last week that Webb is able to gaze further into the cosmos than any telescope before it. “It´s going to explore objects in the solar system and atmospheres of exoplanets orbiting other stars, giving us clues as to whether potentially their atmospheres are similar to our own,” he said. “It may answer some questions that we have: Where do we come from? What more is out there? Who are we?

And of course, it´s going to answer some questions that we don´t even know what the questions are.” Webb´s infrared capabilities allow it to see back in time to the Big Bang, which happened 13.8 billion years ago. Because the Universe is expanding, light from the earliest stars shifts from the ultraviolet and visible wavelengths it was emitted in, to longer infrared wavelengths — which Webb is equipped to detect at an unprecedented resolution. At present, the earliest cosmological observations date to within 330 million years of the Big Bang, but with Webb´s capacities, astronomers believe they will easily break the record.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://beforeitsnews.com/ }

SpaceX's Starship booster is engulfed in an enormous FIREBALL during disastrous test – and it may delay Elon Musk's plans for the $216 million rocket's first orbital flight

• SpaceX booster rocket burst into flames at the firm's facility in Boca Chica, Texas

• SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on Twitter that the explosive incident was 'not good'

• It's likely a setback to Musk's aim of launching his Starship into orbit this summer

By JONATHAN CHADWICK FOR MAILONLINE 

SpaceX's Starship booster rocket was engulfed in an enormous fireball during a disastrous ground test on Monday evening. 

The booster rocket, developed by Elon Musk's SpaceX for its next-generation Starship spacecraft, burst into flames at the firm's facility in Boca Chica, Texas. 

Footage shows a powerful fireball engulfing the bottom of the rocket and sending splinters flying, and dramatically shaking the camera's point of view. 

Monday's unfortunate explosion may delay plans for the $216 million rocket's first orbital flight, which was tentatively scheduled for this summer.

SpaceX's futuristic, bullet-shaped stainless steel Starship has been selected by NASA for the recently-delayed Artemis missions to the Moon later this decade. 

SpaceX's Starship booster rocket was engulfed in an enormous fireball during a disastrous ground test on Monday

Footage shows a powerful fireball engulfing the bottom of the rocket and sending splinters flying. The ground test took place at SpaceX's facility in Boca Chica, Texas

STARSHIP AND SUPER HEAVY LAUNCHER 

SpaceX is planning to carry humans using a two-stage spacecraft composed of Starship (the passenger-carrying section) and the Super Heavy rocket booster.

The firm still has work to do on construction of the $216 million Starship, previously known as 'BFR', although it has been testing out launching Starship prototypes into the air and landing them. 

SpaceX was conducting a ground test of the Super Heavy booster when it exploded at around 16:20 CT (22:20 BST) on Monday.

A livestream was being recorded by the website NASA Spaceflight when the explosion took place. 

The booster remained standing upright, bolted to a test gantry afterward. There was no immediate indication of injuries, although black smoke spewed from the area of the test pad an hour after the incident.

SpaceX boss Elon Musk said on Twitter: 'Yeah, actually not good. Team is assessing damage.' 

Musk also said the issue was to do with the 'spin tests' of the 33 Raptor engines, powered by cryogenic liquid methane and liquid oxygen.

SpaceX flows high-pressure gas through the engines' turbines to power the Super Heavy booster. 

The failure came in the midst of a dayslong static fire test campaign in Boca Chica, Texas, of the booster, equipped with an array of 33 Raptor engines for use in an upcoming uncrewed orbital test flight SpaceX hoped to launch later this year

Musk said cryogenic fuel is an 'added challenge'. 

'It evaporates to create fuel-air explosion risk in a partially oxygen atmosphere like Earth,' he said on Twitter. 

'Going forward, we won't do a spin start test with all 33 engines at once,' Musk also tweeted.  

MailOnline contacted SpaceX and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for an official comment. 

An FAA spokesperson replied: 'The FAA is in close contact with SpaceX as the company looks into the fire that occurred as part of its Super Heavy booster rocket development. 

'The law limits the FAA’s safety oversight to protecting the public during scheduled launch and reentry operations. Yesterday’s event does not fall under the agency’s jurisdiction.'

The booster remained standing upright, bolted to a test gantry afterward. There was no immediate indication of injuries, although black smoke spewed from the area of the test pad an hour after the incident

A livestream was being recorded by the website NASA Spaceflight when the explosion took place. SpaceX boss Elon Musk posted in reply to NASA Spaceflight on Twitter: 'Yeah, actually not good. Team is assessing damage'

Starship, which will stand 394 feet (120 metres) tall when mated with its super-heavy first-stage booster, is the company's next-generation launch vehicle at the centre of Musk's ambitions to make human space travel more affordable and routine. 

An upcoming uncrewed orbital test flight of Starship was anticipated to launch this summer, although a delay now seems likely.

In late 2020 and early 2021, SpaceX lost four prototypes of the Starship itself in a series of high-altitude test launches when the return landing attempts ended in explosions. 

The Starship prototype finally made a safe touchdown after a high altitude flight test in May 2021. 

Elon Musk (pictured) had hoped Starship's first flight into orbit would come in the first month of 2022

Musk had previously said the first orbital launch of Starship would 'hopefully' happen in January 'or perhaps February' 2022 and could be followed by 12 or more launches throughout the rest of the year.

'There's a lot of risk associated with this first launch,' Musk told the US government's National Academies last November.

'So I would not say that it is likely to be successful, but I think we will make a lot of progress.' 

After a dozen or so orbital test flights next year, SpaceX then would start launching valuable satellites and other payloads to orbit on Starships in 2023, he said. 

Musk also said his firm has built a 'factory for making a lot of these vehicles'. 

'This is not a case of just one or two, we're aiming to make a great many [Starships],' he told National Academies' members. 'Ultimately, in order for life to become multiplanetary, we'll need maybe a thousand ships.' 

Musk thinks a natural or manmade disaster will eventually bring about the end of civilization, necessitating the relocation to another planet – Mars 'being the only realistic option', he said.

This could be a pandemic worse than Covid-19, continually decreasing birth rates, nuclear Armageddon or perhaps a direct hit by a killer comet 'that takes out a continent'.  

Read more:

• twitter.com/elon...

{ https://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

NASA Officially Unveils First Set of Dazzling James Webb Images

The waiting is finally over.

Image by NASA

The wait is officially over. NASA has released the long-awaited first set of images taken by its uber-expensive James Webb Space Telescope — and they're absolutely breathtaking.

During a live broadcast today, the agency showed off the mind-blowing observations, including some of the deepest views of the cosmos we've ever seen, a groundbreaking moment in the field of astronomy that has been decades in the making.

The news comes after NASA announced that it's completed the commissioning phase of the revolutionary space telescope, officially kicking off full scientific operations.

We'll be updating this post as the new images come in.

DEEP FIELD

We already got a glimpse of the Hubble Space Telescope successor's first images during an unveiling of the first-ever image yesterday, the highest-resolution view of the infrared spectrum ever produced. The stunning image shows "just a little speck of the universe," as NASA administrator Bill Nelson explained during the event.

The image is teeming with galaxies. "Everywhere we look, there's galaxies everywhere," Jane Rigby, James Webb scientist, said during the broadcast.

The most distant galaxies show what they looked like more than 13.1 billion years ago, less than a billion years after the Big Bang.

WASP-96B

This giant planet is composed mainly of gas, and is about half the mass of Jupiter. It's located about 1,150 light-years away from Earth, orbiting its star every 3.4 days.

It's the first spectrum of a exoplanet taken by the telescope, which are wavelengths of light we've never had access to before, according to Nicole Colón, Webb deputy project scientist for exoplanets.

"We can tell there's evidence of clouds and hazes, but the water features aren't as large as we predicted," Colón explained.

"We don't expect that planet to be habitable (it's too hot, and it's a gas giant, so no solid surface)," cosmologist Katie Mack tweeted. "But there's hope we might observe atmospheres of more Earth-like planets in the future."

SOUTHERN RING NEBULA

This gorgeous infrared image shows a star dying in stunning detail.

"Well this one's a banger," The Atlantic's Marina Koren tweeted.

This planetary nebula is an expanding cloud of gas, shrouding the dying remains of a star. It's roughly 2,000 light-years away from Earth and nearly half a light-year in diameter.

The nebula shows up due to its molecular nitrogen lighting up the gas surrounding the stellar remains. The blue haze is due to hot ionized gas, heated by the leftover core of the star.

STEPHAN'S QUINTET

This set of five galaxies is an astonishing 290 million light-years away.

There are millions to hundreds of billions of stars inside each galaxy. They are locked in a close, cosmic dance due to their gravitational force.

The galaxies are also in the process of merging, offering us important clues into the evolution of huge structures in the universe.

The image even shows black holes sucking up matter in the center.

CARINA NEBULA

This stellar nursery is some 7,600 light-years away in the constellation Carina. It's one of the brightest and largest in the sky.

It's also home to massive stars, several times the mass of the Sun.

The gorgeous infrared image shows hundreds of new stars we've never seen before, including jets of bubbling gases being expelled as new stars are born. Every dot of light is an individual star, which may have individual planets orbiting them as well.

MORE TO COME

It's certainly not the last time we'll be hearing from the James Webb Space Telescope. These images only represent the very first batch of scientific observations, and we'll likely see countless more stunning views.

"We're going to be doing discoveries like this every week," Rigby promised.

More on the announcement: 

• The First Full-Color James Webb Image Just Dropped, and It's Beautiful

{ https://futurism.com/ }

The skies above South Dakota, US turned green on Tuesday (5 July) as a particularly strong storm rolled in. 

Eerie images appeared on social media showing the peculiar color of the sky over Sioux Falls, South Dakota just before a thunderstorm swept through the area. 

The National Weather Service confirmed that a ‘derecho storm’ barreled through much of South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa, leaving nearly 30,000 people without power for hours. 

Storms qualify as derechos when they have sustained winds of at least 93 km/h and leave a path of damage at least 400 km long, according to the National Weather Service. This particular storm reached a wind speed of 159 km/h. 

While residents in South Dakota have grown used to derechos having recently experienced two such storms, the green sky was a highly unusual sight. 

What caused the sky to turn green? 

It’s not fully understood why green skies occur, but most scientists point to the liquid water content in the air as a root cause. The celestial phenomenon occurs when clouds carry a lot of water and allow primarily blue light to pass through the storm cloud. The blue light mixes with the sun's red light, and the sky turns green.

  

{ http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.com/ }

Two silver UFO spheres over Horton Kirby, UK 9-Jul-2022

This really strange UFO sighting was filmed in the daytime sky above Horton Kirby, a village in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. This happened on 9th July 2022.

Witness report: 

Sitting in my garden I noticed off to my left 2 objects flying parallel to each other, at first I took it to be 2 herons then noticed them to be metallic spheres, thinking they maybe baloons I checked the wind direction which was at a constant moderate breeze in the direction of N to SW these objects however were travelling in a direction of W to E approximately which meant they were cutting across the wind at approx a 45 degrees angle. They elevated to just under the clouds and then disappeared. I was unable to see them on the phone screen (Samsung S21+) so just pointed and shot in the general direction in an attempt to capture some footage so not the best I’m afraid but you can clearly see in the attached video the objects.

RELATED VIDEOS, selected and posted by peter2011

{ https://www.latest-ufo-sightings.net/ }