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Webb liftoff on Ariane 5 to unlock secrets of the Universe
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Teams of astronomers used the combined power of NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes to revisit the legendary Vega disk. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, S. Wolff (University of Arizona), K. Su (University of Arizona), A. Gáspár (University of Arizona) In the 1997 movie “Contact,” adapted from Carl Sagan’s 1985 novel, the lead character scientist Ellie Arroway (played by actor Jodi Foster) takes a space-alien-built wormhole ride to the star Vega. She emerges inside a snowstorm of debris encircling the star — but no obvious planets are visible.
It looks like the filmmakers got it right.
A team of astronomers at the University of Arizona, Tucson used NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes for an unprecedented in-depth look at the nearly 100-billion-mile-diameter debris disk encircling Vega. “Between the Hubble and Webb telescopes, you get this very clear view of Vega. It’s a mysterious system because it’s unlike other circumstellar disks we’ve looked at,” said Andras Gáspár of the University of Arizona, a member of the research team. “The Vega disk is smooth, ridiculously smooth.”
The big surprise to the research team is that there is no obvious evidence for one or more large planets plowing through the face-on disk like snow tractors. “It’s making us rethink the range and variety among exoplanet systems,” said Kate Su of the University of Arizona, lead author of the paper presenting the Webb findings.
[left] A Hubble Space Telescope false-color view of a 100-billion-mile-wide disk of dust around the summer star Vega. Hubble detects reflected light from dust that is the size of smoke particles largely in a halo on the periphery of the disk. The disk is very smooth, with no evidence of embedded large planets. The black spot at the center blocks out the bright glow of the hot young star.
[right] The James Webb Space Telescope resolves the glow of warm dust in a disk halo, at 23 billion miles out. The outer disk (analogous to the solar system’s Kuiper Belt) extends from 7 billion miles to 15 billion miles. The inner disk extends from the inner edge of the outer disk down to close proximity to the star. There is a notable dip in surface brightness of the inner disk from approximately 3.7 to 7.2 billion miles. The black spot at the center is due to lack of data from saturation. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, S. Wolff (University of Arizona), K. Su (University of Arizona), A. Gáspár (University of Arizona)
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Webb sees the infrared glow from a disk of particles the size of sand swirling around the sizzling blue-white star that is 40 times brighter than our Sun. Hubble captures an outer halo of this disk, with particles no bigger than the consistency of smoke that are reflecting starlight.
The distribution of dust in the Vega debris disk is layered because the pressure of starlight pushes out the smaller grains faster than larger grains. “Different types of physics will locate different-sized particles at different locations,” said Schuyler Wolff of the University of Arizona team, lead author of the paper presenting the Hubble findings. “The fact that we’re seeing dust particle sizes sorted out can help us understand the underlying dynamics in circumstellar disks.”
The Vega disk does have a subtle gap, around 60 AU (astronomical units) from the star (twice the distance of Neptune from the Sun), but otherwise is very smooth all the way in until it is lost in the glare of the star. This shows that there are no planets down at least to Neptune-mass circulating in large orbits, as in our solar system, say the researchers.
Hubble acquired this image of the circumstellar disk around the star Vega using the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, S. Wolff (University of Arizona), K. Su (University of Arizona), A. Gáspár (University of Arizona)
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“We’re seeing in detail how much variety there is among circumstellar disks, and how that variety is tied into the underlying planetary systems. We’re finding a lot out about the planetary systems — even when we can’t see what might be hidden planets,” added Su. “There’s still a lot of unknowns in the planet-formation process, and I think these new observations of Vega are going to help constrain models of planet formation.”
Disk Diversity
Newly forming stars accrete material from a disk of dust and gas that is the flattened remnant of the cloud from which they are forming. In the mid-1990s Hubble found disks around many newly forming stars. The disks are likely sites of planet formation, migration, and sometimes destruction. Fully matured stars like Vega have dusty disks enriched by ongoing “bumper car” collisions among orbiting asteroids and debris from evaporating comets. These are primordial bodies that can survive up to the present 450-million-year age of Vega (our Sun is approximately ten times older than Vega). Dust within our solar system (seen as the Zodiacal light) is also replenished by minor bodies ejecting dust at a rate of about 10 tons per second. This dust is shoved around by planets. This provides a strategy for detecting planets around other stars without seeing them directly – just by witnessing the effects they have on the dust.
“Vega continues to be unusual,” said Wolff. “The architecture of the Vega system is markedly different from our own solar system where giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn are keeping the dust from spreading the way it does with Vega.”
Webb acquired this image of the circumstellar disk around the star Vega using the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, S. Wolff (University of Arizona), K. Su (University of Arizona), A. Gáspár (University of Arizona)
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For comparison, there is a nearby star, Fomalhaut, which is about the same distance, age and temperature as Vega. But Fomalhaut’s circumstellar architecture is greatly different from Vega’s. Fomalhaut has three nested debris belts.
Planets are suggested as shepherding bodies around Fomalhaut that gravitationally constrict the dust into rings, though no planets have been positively identified yet. “Given the physical similarity between the stars of Vega and Fomalhaut, why does Fomalhaut seem to have been able to form planets and Vega didn’t?” said team member George Rieke of the University of Arizona, a member of the research team. “What’s the difference? Did the circumstellar environment, or the star itself, create that difference? What’s puzzling is that the same physics is at work in both,” added Wolff.
First Clue to Possible Planetary Construction Yards
Located in the summer constellation Lyra, Vega is one of the brightest stars in the northern sky. Vega is legendary because it offered the first evidence for material orbiting a star — presumably the stuff for making planets — as potential abodes of life. This was first hypothesized by Immanuel Kant in 1775. But it took over 200 years before the first observational evidence was collected in 1984. A puzzling excess of infrared light from warm dust was detected by NASA’s IRAS (Infrared Astronomy Satellite). It was interpreted as a shell or disk of dust extending twice the orbital radius of Pluto from the star.
In 2005, NASA’s infrared Spitzer Space Telescope mapped out a ring of dust around Vega. This was further confirmed by observations using submillimeter telescopes including Caltech’s Submillimeter Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, and also the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, and ESA’s (European Space Agency’s) Herschel Space Telescope, but none of these telescopes could see much detail. “The Hubble and Webb observations together provide so much more detail that they are telling us something completely new about the Vega system that nobody knew before,” said Rieke.
Two papers (Wolff et al. and Su et. al.) from the Arizona team will be published in The Astrophysical Journal.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing 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).
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, Colorado, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
Explore More:
Finding Planetary Construction Zones
The science paper by Schuyler Wolff et al., PDF (3.24 MB)
The science paper by Kate Su et al., PDF (2.10 MB)
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Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov), Laura Betz (laura.e.betz@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD
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Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD
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Last Updated Nov 01, 2024 Editor Andrea Gianopoulos Location NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Related Terms
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By European Space Agency
Stare deeply at these galaxies. They appear as if blood is pumping through the top of a flesh-free face. The long, ghastly ‘stare’ of their searing eye-like cores shines out into the supreme cosmic darkness.
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By NASA
5 Min Read ‘Blood-Soaked’ Eyes: NASA’s Webb, Hubble Examine Galaxy Pair
This observation combines mid-infrared light from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, and ultraviolet and visible light from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxies grazed one another millions of years ago. The smaller spiral on the left, cataloged as IC 2163, passed behind NGC 2207, the larger spiral galaxy at right. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Stare deeply at these galaxies. They appear as if blood is pumping through the top of a flesh-free face. The long, ghastly “stare” of their searing eye-like cores shines out into the supreme cosmic darkness.
It’s good fortune that looks can be deceiving.
These galaxies have only grazed one another to date, with the smaller spiral on the left, cataloged as IC 2163, ever so slowly “creeping” behind NGC 2207, the spiral galaxy at right, millions of years ago.
The pair’s macabre colors represent a combination of mid-infrared light from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope with visible and ultraviolet light from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.
Image A: Galaxies IC 2163 and NGC 2207 (Webb and Hubble Image)
This observation combines mid-infrared light from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, and ultraviolet and visible light from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxies grazed one another millions of years ago. The smaller spiral on the left, cataloged as IC 2163, passed behind NGC 2207, the larger spiral galaxy at right. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Look for potential evidence of their “light scrape” in the shock fronts, where material from the galaxies may have slammed together. These lines represented in brighter red, including the “eyelids,” may cause the appearance of the galaxies’ bulging, vein-like arms.
The galaxies’ first pass may have also distorted their delicately curved arms, pulling out tidal extensions in several places. The diffuse, tiny spiral arms between IC 2163’s core and its far left arm may be an example of this activity. Even more tendrils look like they’re hanging between the galaxies’ cores. Another extension “drifts” off the top of the larger galaxy, forming a thin, semi-transparent arm that practically runs off screen.
Image B: Galaxies IC 2163 and NGC 2207 (MIRI Image)
This mid-infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope excels at showing where the cold dust, set off in white, glows throughout these two galaxies, IC 2163 and NGC 2207. The telescope also helps pinpoint where stars and star clusters are buried within the dust. These regions are bright pink. Some of the pink dots may be extremely distant active supermassive black holes known as quasars. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Both galaxies have high star formation rates, like innumerable individual hearts fluttering all across their arms. Each year, the galaxies produce the equivalent of two dozen new stars that are the size of the Sun. Our Milky Way galaxy only forms the equivalent of two or three new Sun-like stars per year. Both galaxies have also hosted seven known supernovae in recent decades, a high number compared to an average of one every 50 years in the Milky Way. Each supernova may have cleared space in their arms, rearranging gas and dust that later cooled, and allowed many new stars to form.
To spot the star-forming “action sequences,” look for the bright blue areas captured by Hubble in ultraviolet light, and pink and white regions detailed mainly by Webb’s mid-infrared data. Larger areas of stars are known as super star clusters. Look for examples of these in the top-most spiral arm that wraps above the larger galaxy and points left. Other bright regions in the galaxies are mini starbursts — locations where many stars form in quick succession. Additionally, the top and bottom “eyelid” of IC 2163, the smaller galaxy on the left, is filled with newer star formation and burns brightly.
Image C: Galaxies IC 2163 and NGC 2207 (Hubble and Webb Images Side by Side)
Image Before/After What’s next for these spirals? Over many millions of years, the galaxies may swing by one another repeatedly. It’s possible that their cores and arms will meld, leaving behind completely reshaped arms, and an even brighter, cyclops-like “eye” at the core. Star formation will also slow down once their stores of gas and dust deplete, and the scene will calm.
Video A: Tour of Galaxies IC 2163 and NGC 2207
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing 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).
The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, Colorado, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.
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Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov, Claire Andreoli – claire.andreoli@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Claire Blome – cblome@stsci.edu, Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
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Last Updated Oct 30, 2024 Editor Marty McCoy Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
Astrophysics Galaxies Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes Research Goddard Space Flight Center Hubble Space Telescope James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Science & Research Spiral Galaxies The Universe View the full article
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By NASA
6 min read
Preparations for Next Moonwalk Simulations Underway (and Underwater)
With one of its solar arrays deployed, NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer sits in a clean room at Lockheed Martin Space. The large silver grate attached to the spacecraft is the radiator for HVM³, one of two instruments that the mission will use to better understand the lunar water cycle.Lockheed Martin Space There’s water on the Moon, but scientists only have a general idea of where it is and what form it is in. A trailblazing NASA mission will get some answers.
When NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer begins orbiting the Moon next year, it will help resolve an enduring mystery: Where is the Moon’s water? Scientists have seen signs suggesting it exists even where temperatures soar on the lunar surface, and there’s good reason to believe it can be found as surface ice in permanently shadowed craters, places that have not seen direct sunlight for billions of years. But, so far, there have been few definitive answers, and a full understanding of the nature of the Moon’s water cycle remains stubbornly out of reach.
This is where Lunar Trailblazer comes in. Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and led by Caltech in Pasadena, California, the small satellite will map the Moon’s surface water in unprecedented detail to determine the water’s abundance, location, form, and how it changes over time.
“Making high-resolution measurements of the type and amount of lunar water will help us understand the lunar water cycle, and it will provide clues to other questions, like how and when did Earth get its water,” said Bethany Ehlmann, principal investigator for Lunar Trailblazer at Caltech. “But understanding the inventory of lunar water is also important if we are to establish a sustained human and robotic presence on the Moon and beyond.”
Future explorers could process lunar ice to create breathable oxygen or even fuel. And they could also conduct science. Using information from Lunar Trailblazer, future human or robotic scientific investigations could sample the ice for later study to determine where the water came from. For example, the presence of ammonia in ice samples may indicate the water came from comets; sulfur, on the other hand, could show that it was vented to the surface from the lunar interior when the Moon was young and volcanically active.
This artist’s concept depicts NASA’s Lunar Trailblazer in lunar orbit about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the surface of the Moon. The spacecraft weighs only 440 pounds (200 kilograms) and measures 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) wide when its solar panels are fully deployed.Lockheed Martin Space “In the future, scientists could analyze the ice in the interiors of permanently shadowed craters to learn more about the origins of water on the Moon,” said Rachel Klima, Lunar Trailblazer deputy principal investigator at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “Like an ice core from a glacier on Earth can reveal the ancient history of our planet’s atmospheric composition, this pristine lunar ice could provide clues as to where that water came from and how and when it got there.”
Understanding whether water molecules move freely across the surface of the Moon or are locked inside rock is also scientifically important. Water molecules could move from frosty “cold traps” to other locations throughout the lunar day. Frost heated by the Sun sublimates (turning from solid ice to a gas without going through a liquid phase), allowing the molecules to move as a gas to other cold locations, where they could form new frost as the Sun moves overhead. Knowing how water moves on the Moon could also lead to new insights into the water cycles on other airless bodies, such as asteroids
Two Instruments, One Mission
Two science instruments aboard the spacecraft will help unlock these secrets: the High-resolution Volatiles and Minerals Moon Mapper (HVM3) infrared spectrometer and the Lunar Thermal Mapper (LTM) infrared multispectral imager.
Developed by JPL, HVM3 will detect and map the spectral fingerprints, or wavelengths of reflected sunlight, of minerals and the different forms of water on the lunar surface. The spectrometer can use faint reflected light from the walls of craters to see the floor of even permanently shadowed craters.
The LTM instrument, which was built by the University of Oxford and funded by the UK Space Agency, will map the minerals and thermal properties of the same lunar landscape. Together they will create a picture of the abundance, location, and form of water while also tracking how its distribution changes over time.
“The LTM instrument precisely maps the surface temperature of the Moon while the HVM3 instrument looks for the spectral signature of water molecules,” said Neil Bowles, instrument scientist for LTM at the University of Oxford. “Both instruments will allow us to understand how surface temperature affects water, improving our knowledge of the presence and distribution of these molecules on the Moon.”
Weighing only 440 pounds (200 kilograms) and measuring 11.5 feet (3.5 meters) wide when its solar panels are fully deployed, Lunar Trailblazer will orbit the Moon about 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the surface. The mission was selected by NASA’s SIMPLEx (Small Innovative Missions for Planetary Exploration) program in 2019 and will hitch a ride on the same launch as the Intuitive Machines-2 delivery to the Moon through NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative. Lunar Trailblazer passed a critical operational readiness review in early October at Caltech after completing environmental testing in August at Lockheed Martin Space in Littleton, Colorado, where it was assembled.
The orbiter and its science instruments are now being put through flight system software tests that simulate key aspects of launch, maneuvers, and the science mission while in orbit around the Moon. At the same time, the operations team led by IPAC at Caltech is conducting tests to simulate commanding, communication with NASA’s Deep Space Network, and navigation.
More About Lunar Trailblazer
Lunar Trailblazer is managed by JPL, and its science investigation and mission operations are led by Caltech with the mission operations center at IPAC. Managed for NASA by Caltech, JPL also provides system engineering, mission assurance, the HVM3 instrument, as well as mission design and navigation. Lockheed Martin Space provides the spacecraft, integrates the flight system, and supports operations under contract with Caltech.
SIMPLEx mission investigations are managed by the Planetary Missions Program Office at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, as part of the Discovery Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. The program conducts space science investigations in the Planetary Science Division of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters.
For more information about Lunar Trailblazer, visit:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/lunar-trailblazer
News Media Contacts
Karen Fox / Molly Wasser
NASA Headquarters, Washington
202-358-1600
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Ian J. O’Neill
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-354-2649
ian.j.oneill@jpl.nasa.gov
Gordon Squires
IPAC, Pasadena, Calif.
626-395-3121
squires@ipac.caltech.edu
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Last Updated Oct 29, 2024 Related Terms
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