Top row, left to right: simulated electron, positron, and ion charge densities. Bottom row, left to right: simulated electron, positron, and ion contributions to the overall electric current. Click for high-resolution version. [Hu and Beloborodov 2022]
“Axisymmetric Pulsar Magnetosphere Revisited,” Rui Hu and Andrei M. Beloborodov 2022 ApJ 939 42. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac961d
It’s been more than three months since astronomers waited with bated breath, endured an hour of the undeniable earworm that is the NASA hold music, and feasted their collective eyes upon the first image from JWST. While the public’s JWST experience began there, the road to the first JWST images began years earlier for the scientists and administrators working behind the scenes. Let’s take a quick look at the creation of those first images — an immense effort that culminated in 26,000 news articles viewed 120 billion times.
In 2017, representatives from NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, the European Space Agency, and the Space Telescope Science Institute began the process of selecting JWST’s first targets. How do you select five targets from an entire universe of possibilities? You ask a bunch of astronomers, of course! The selection committee polled members of the American Astronomical Society to get a broad list of targets, which the JWST Early Release Observations committee narrowed down to just 70 that reflected JWST’s four main science themes — stars and galaxies in the early universe, galaxy formation, stellar evolution, and planetary systems near and far. The five-member Early Release Observations Core Implementation Team, led by Klaus Pontoppidan (Space Telescope Science Institute), made the final target decisions.
After the data for the first images were collected in June and July 2022, the image visualization team faced a daunting task: combining data taken at many different wavelengths into images that are both informative and beautiful. With few exceptions, the team opted to follow chromatic ordering, assigning redder colors to longer wavelengths and bluer colors to shorter wavelengths, while selecting filters that highlight the physical characteristics of the target. For example, in the images of the Carina Nebula shown above, the filters were selected to trace ionized gas, jets and outflows, dust, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons — organic molecules containing carbon atoms arranged in rings.
Though the iconic images from JWST have long since captured our imaginations (and taken over our desktop backgrounds), the image processing work continues. Check out the full article linked below for more details on how the first JWST images were created — and be sure to take a look at the full gallery of JWST images released so far!
“The JWST Early Release Observations,” Klaus M. Pontoppidan et al 2022 ApJL 936 L14. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ac8a4e
Model results showing the conditions 90 minutes after a coronal mass ejection for a field of view 175 times the stellar radius (left) and 60 times the stellar radius (right). The yellow lobes show the surface on which the plasma density is ten times higher than the typical density. Planetary orbits are shown in blue, and the sphere surrounding the central star shows the magnetic field strength at half the distance to the inner planet. The magenta and green lines show the magnetic fields that loop back to the star’s surface or extend outward, respectively. Click for high-resolution version. [Fraschetti et al. 2022]
“Stellar Energetic Particle Transport in the Turbulent and CME-disrupted Stellar Wind of AU Microscopii,” Federico Fraschetti et al 2022 ApJ 937 126. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac86d7
Today’s the day! At 7:14 pm EDT, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft will slam into the asteroid Dimorphos to explore the possibility that we can reroute an asteroid headed toward Earth by smashing a spacecraft into it. Back on Earth, a research team led by James Walker (Southwest Research Institute) prepared for today’s impact with a collision of their own; the team loaded limestone and hematite stones into a wooden frame, pictured above, secured the stones with concrete, and launched a 3-centimeter-wide aluminum sphere at the target — at 5.44 kilometers per second. The impact completely dismantled the target, which was designed to approximate the properties of a rubble-pile asteroid, and reduced much of the rock and concrete to a fine powder. While the particulars of the setup are different from those of DART and Dimorphos, this test gives us a way to assess the modeling tools that researchers will use to understand the outcome of the DART mission. To learn more about this experiment and check out the aftermath, be sure to read the full article below.
Want to learn more about the DART mission? You can read about other preparations for and expected insights from the DART–Dimorphos impact in a recent Focus Issue of the Planetary Science Journal.
“Momentum Enhancement from a 3 cm Diameter Aluminum Sphere Striking a Small Boulder Assembly at 5.4 km s−1,” James D. Walker et al 2022 Planet. Sci. J. 3 215. doi:10.3847/PSJ/ac854f
New models of various properties of Prokofiev crater on Mercury: (a) elevation, (b) illumination, (c) maximum temperature, and (d) depth at which ice is stable. These maps have a resolution of 125 meters per pixel. Click for high-resolution version. [Barker et al. 2022]
“New Constraints on the Volatile Deposit in Mercury’s North Polar Crater, Prokofiev,” Michael K. Barker et al 2022 Planet. Sci. J. 3 188. doi:10.3847/PSJ/ac7d5a
Images of the companion object (circled) taken over the course of a year. The companion object is detected with a signal-to-noise ratio ranging from 10 to 19. Click to enlarge. [Kuzuhara et al. 2022]
“Direct-imaging Discovery and Dynamical Mass of a Substellar Companion Orbiting an Accelerating Hyades Sun-like Star with SCExAO/CHARIS,” Masayuki Kuzuhara et al 2022 ApJL 934 L18. doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ac772f
In June 2012, the Sun released a powerful solar flare and an explosive burst of plasma and magnetic fields called a coronal mass ejection. Days later, this solar storm swept through the inner solar system, where multiple spacecraft sampled the passing plasma and magnetic fields. In a recent publication, a team led by Qiang Hu (University of Alabama in Huntsville) used a new quasi-three-dimensional fitting method to analyze spacecraft data of the event and deduce the structure of the passing bundle of magnetic field lines. The image above shows the simulated strength and direction — with yellow being strong and outward pointing and blue being strong and inward pointing — of the magnetic field lines that the Wind spacecraft crossed as the storm traveled past it. (In this image, the spacecraft would be located roughly halfway along the length of the field lines.) These simulations show three-dimensional winding behavior, highlighted by the red lines in the image above, that was not present in one- or two-dimensional models of the same event. To learn more about this event and the authors’ new modeling technique, be sure to check out the full article below!
“Validation and Interpretation of a Three-dimensional Configuration of a Magnetic Cloud Flux Rope,” Qiang Hu et al 2022 ApJ 934 50. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac7803
Even though the Andromeda Galaxy is among our nearest galactic neighbors, there’s still much about it that we don’t know. Since the 1950s, astronomers have debated whether Andromeda, similar to the Milky Way, hosts a central bar of stars. Discerning Andromeda’s structure is key to understanding how it formed and evolved, but its tilted orientation makes it difficult to do so from our vantage point. Now, a team led by Zi-Xuan Feng (Shanghai Astronomical Observatory and University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) has presented new evidence that shows Andromeda is indeed a barred galaxy. The above image shows the new results superimposed atop observations from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Subaru and Mayall ground-based telescopes. The red and blue symbols indicate the locations of velocity jumps — shocks — identified in emission from oxygen and hydrogen gas. Using simulations, Feng and collaborators show that shocks of this type cannot form without a rotating bar of stars. To learn more about the observations and simulations that led to this conclusion, be sure to check out the full article below!
“Large-scale Hydrodynamical Shocks as the Smoking-gun Evidence for a Bar in M31,” Zi-Xuan Feng et al 2022 ApJ 933 233. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac7964
The 12 galaxies in the sample, ordered from high to low stellar mass. Click for high-resolution version. [Gilhuly et al. 2022]
“Stellar Halos from the Dragonfly Edge-on Galaxies Survey,” Colleen Gilhuly et al 2022 ApJ 932 44. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac6750
When galaxies clash, is star formation heightened or quenched? The Taffy galaxies (UGC 12914/5) provide an excellent setting to probe this question. These two galaxies, shown above in a representative-color optical image from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, collided head on just 25–30 million years ago, resulting in a bridge of turbulent gas that stretches across the space between them. A team led by Philip Appleton (California Institute of Technology/Infrared Processing and Analysis Center) carried out new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations, the locations of which are marked with red circles in the image above, to study this interacting pair of galaxies. The team’s observations of carbon monoxide gas suggest that the filaments and clumps within the bridge that connects the two galaxies are likely gravitationally unbound. Without a source of pressure to keep them together, these potentially star-forming features are likely to dissipate within 2–5 million years. Despite this, star formation presses on in isolated regions. To learn more about the results of this galactic interaction, be sure to check out the full article below!
“The CO Emission in the Taffy Galaxies (UGC 12914/15) at 60 pc Resolution. I. The Battle for Star Formation in the Turbulent Taffy Bridge,” P. N. Appleton et al 2022 ApJ 931 121. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac63b2