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Humans are still hunting for aliens. Here’s how astronomers are looking for life beyond Earth

<p>We have long been fascinated with the idea of alien life. The earliest written record presenting the idea of “aliens” is seen in the satiric work of Assyrian writer <a href="https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/life-unbounded/the-first-alien/">Lucian of Samosata</a> dated to 200 AD.</p> <p>In one novel, Lucian <a href="https://www.yorku.ca/inpar/lucian_true_tale.pdf">writes of a journey to the Moon</a> and the bizarre life he imagines living there – everything from three-headed vultures to fleas the size of elephants.</p> <p>Now, 2,000 years later, we still write stories of epic adventures beyond Earth to meet otherworldly beings (<a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Hitchhikers-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-novel-by-Adams">Hitchhiker’s Guide</a>, anyone?). Stories like these entertain and inspire, and we are forever trying to find out if science fiction will become science fact.</p> <h2>Not all alien life is the same</h2> <p>When looking for life beyond Earth, we are faced with two possibilities. We might find basic microbial life hiding somewhere in our Solar System; or we will identify signals from intelligent life somewhere far away.</p> <div data-id="17"> </div> <p>Unlike in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Star-Wars-film-series">Star Wars</a>, we’re not talking far, far away in another galaxy, but rather around other nearby stars. It is this second possibility which really excites me, and should excite you too. A detection of intelligent life would fundamentally change how we see ourselves in the Universe.</p> <p>In the last 80 years, programs dedicated to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) have worked tirelessly searching for cosmic “hellos” in the form of radio signals.</p> <p>The reason we think any intelligent life would communicate via radio waves is due to the waves’ ability to travel vast distances through space, rarely interacting with the dust and gas in between stars. If anything out there is trying to communicate, it’s a pretty fair bet they would do it through radio waves.</p> <h2>Listening to the stars</h2> <p>One of the most exciting searches to date is <a href="https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/initiative/1">Breakthrough Listen</a>, the largest scientific research program dedicated to looking for evidence of intelligent life beyond Earth.</p> <p>This is one of many projects funded by US-based Israeli entrepreneurs Julia and Yuri Milner, with some serious dollars attached. Over a ten-year period a total amount of <a href="https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/initiative/1">US$100 million</a> will be invested in this effort, and they have a mighty big task at hand.</p> <p>Breakthrough Listen is currently targeting the closest one million stars in the hope of identifying any unnatural, alien-made radio signals. Using telescopes around the globe, from the 64-metre Murriyang Dish (Parkes) here in Australia, to the 64-antenna MeerKAT array in South Africa, the search is one of epic proportions. But it isn’t the only one.</p> <p>Hiding away in the Cascade Mountains north of San Francisco sits the <a href="https://www.seti.org/ata">Allen Telescope Array</a>, the first radio telescope built from the ground up specifically for SETI use.</p> <p>This unique facility is another exciting project, able to search for signals every day of the year. This project is currently upgrading the hardware and software on the original dish, including the ability to target several stars at once. This is a part of the non-profit research organisation, the SETI Institute.</p> <h2>Space lasers!</h2> <p>The SETI Institute is also looking for signals that would be best explained as “space lasers”.</p> <p>Some astronomers hypothesise that intelligent beings might use massive lasers to communicate or even to propel spacecraft. This is because even here on Earth we’re investigating <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/the-future-of-laser-communications/">laser communication</a> and laser-propelled <a href="https://www.insidescience.org/news/new-light-sail-design-would-use-laser-beam-ride-space">light sails</a>.</p> <p>To search for these mysterious flashes in the night sky, we need speciality instruments in locations around the globe, which are currently being developed and deployed. This is a research area I’m excited to watch progress and eagerly await results.</p> <p>As of writing this article, sadly no alien laser signals have been found yet.</p> <h2>Out there, somewhere</h2> <p>It’s always interesting to ponder who or what might be living out in the Universe, but there is one problem we must overcome to meet or communicate with aliens. It’s the speed of light.</p> <p>Everything we rely on to communicate via space requires light, and it can only travel so fast. This is where my optimism for finding intelligent life begins to fade. The Universe is big – really big.</p> <p>To put it in perspective, humans started using radio waves to communicate across large distances in 1901. That <a href="https://ethw.org/Milestones:Reception_of_Transatlantic_Radio_Signals,_1901">first transatlantic signal</a> has only travelled 122 light years, reaching just 0.0000015% of the stars in our Milky Way.</p> <p>Did your optimism just fade too? That is okay, because here is the wonderful thing… we don’t have to find life to know it is out there, somewhere.</p> <p>When we consider the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-many-stars-are-there-in-space-165370">trillions of galaxies</a>, septillion of stars, and likely many more planets just in the observable Universe, it feels near impossible that we are alone.</p> <p>We can’t fully constrain the parameters we need to estimate how many other lifeforms might be out there, as famously proposed by Frank Drake, but using our best estimates and <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-journal-of-astrobiology/article/numerical-testbed-for-hypotheses-of-extraterrestrial-life-and-intelligence/0C97E7803EEB69323C3728F02BA31AFA">simulations</a> the current best answer to this is tens of thousands of possible civilisations out there.</p> <p>The Universe <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-space-infinite-we-asked-5-experts-165742">might even be infinite</a>, but that is too much for my brain to comprehend on a weekday.</p> <h2>Don’t forget the tiny aliens</h2> <p>So, despite keenly listening for signals, we might not find intelligent life in our lifetimes. But there is hope for aliens yet.</p> <p>The ones hiding in plain sight, on the planetary bodies of our Solar System. In the coming decades we’ll explore the moons of Jupiter and Saturn like never before, with missions hunting to find traces of basic life.</p> <p>Mars will continue to be explored – eventually by humans – which could allow us to uncover and retrieve samples from new and unexplored regions.</p> <p>Even if our future aliens are only tiny microbes, it would still be nice to know we have company in this Universe.</p> <p><em>Images: Getty</em></p> <p><em style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #212529; font-family: -apple-system, 'system-ui', 'Segoe UI', Roboto, 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', 'Noto Color Emoji'; font-size: 16px; background-color: #ffffff;">This article originally appeared on <a href="https://theconversation.com/humans-are-still-hunting-for-aliens-heres-how-astronomers-are-looking-for-life-beyond-earth-197621" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a>. </em></p>

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New NASA images capture birth of a star

<p dir="ltr">The James Webb Space Telescope continues to stun with its images of the universe following the release of an image showing a “fiery hourglass” housing a newborn star.</p> <p dir="ltr">The image of the protostar (a young star that is still unstable and cocooned in a cloud of dust and gas) has offered scientists insight into what stars might look like “in their infancy”.</p> <p dir="ltr">With the star located in the dark cloud L1527 and only visible in infrared light, the image was captured using Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam).</p> <p dir="ltr">The protostar itself is hidden from view within the “neck” of the hourglass shape.</p> <p dir="ltr">"An edge-on proto-planetary disk is seen as a dark line across the middle of the neck," NASA said in <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-catches-fiery-hourglass-as-new-star-forms/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a release</a>.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-5b29e609-7fff-75b1-1c05-9a8cee017e57"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">"Light from the protostar leaks above and below this disk, illuminating cavities within the surrounding gas and dust."</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/11/star-birth1.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a photo of a young star using its infrared camera. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI. Image processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI)</em></p> <p dir="ltr">Blue and orange clouds forming above, below and around the protostar that form the hourglass represent empty spaces created as material shoots away from the protostar and collides with surrounding matter, with the colours being caused by layers of dust between the camera and the clouds.</p> <p dir="ltr">The thicker the dust, the more orange the clouds appear, since blue light is unable to escape and be perceived by our eyes.</p> <p dir="ltr">While it may appear small, the disk in the middle of the hourglass is about the size of our solar system.</p> <p dir="ltr">According to NASA, the protostar is relatively young at about 100,000 years old and considered a class 0 protostar, “the earliest stage of star formation”.</p> <p dir="ltr">‘Protostars like these, which are still cocooned in a dark cloud of dust and gas, have a long way to go before they become full-fledged stars,” NASA said.</p> <p dir="ltr">"L1527 doesn't generate its own energy through nuclear fusion of hydrogen yet, an essential characteristic of stars.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-83fc6d66-7fff-9fca-4c7e-d55b846fada4"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">"Its shape, while mostly spherical, is also unstable, taking the form of a small, hot and puffy clump of gas, somewhere between 20 and 40 percent the mass of our Sun."</p> <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"> <p dir="ltr" lang="en">Our universe is beautiful. <a href="https://twitter.com/NASAWebb?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NASAWebb</a> captured a stellar birth which is so poetically nestled in this hourglass shape. A truly stunning marker of time. <a href="https://t.co/8UflbFPdid">pic.twitter.com/8UflbFPdid</a></p> <p>— Shannon Stirone 💀 (@shannonmstirone) <a href="https://twitter.com/shannonmstirone/status/1593026314310934528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 16, 2022</a></p></blockquote> <p dir="ltr">The protostar will get closer to stable nuclear fusion (the requirement to be a star) as it gathers more mass and its core compresses.</p> <p dir="ltr">"The scene shown in this image reveals L1527 doing just that," NASA said.</p> <p dir="ltr">"The surrounding molecular cloud is made up of dense dust and gas being drawn to the centre, where the protostar resides.</p> <p dir="ltr">“As the material falls in, it spirals around the centre.</p> <p dir="ltr">"This creates a dense disk of material, known as an accretion disk, which feeds material to the protostar.”</p> <p dir="ltr">“Ultimately, this view of L1527 provides a window into what our Sun and solar system looked like in their infancy.”</p> <p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"><em>Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI. Image processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI)</em></p>

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Webb on Webb: How JWST peers back in time at the earliest stages of the Universe

<p>What did the first galaxies and <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/physics/webb-spotted-first-oldest-stars/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">stars look like</a>? How have they evolved over time? Does life exist somewhere else out there in the great inky blackness of the universe? How can astronomers possibly hope to see through the vast amounts of gas and dust to uncover nascent stars nestled in their cloudy nurseries?</p> <p>In <em>Cosmos Magazine #96</em>, Swinburne University postdoctoral researcher, Sarah Webb, explains how astronomers are exploring these questions, uncovering the deepest mysteries of the universe and space and time.</p> <p>The appropriately named Webb, walks us through the most powerful time machine we’ve ever built, showing us how the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/james-webb-space-telescopes-golden-mirror/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">golden mirrors</a> of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) allow it to peer through the space dense with gas and dust and look at (but not touch!) the very early days of our universe.</p> <div class="newsletter-box"> <div id="wpcf7-f6-p217307-o1" class="wpcf7" dir="ltr" lang="en-US" role="form"> <form class="wpcf7-form mailchimp-ext-0.5.62 resetting spai-bg-prepared" action="/science/webb-on-webb-back-time-early-universe/#wpcf7-f6-p217307-o1" method="post" novalidate="novalidate" data-status="resetting"> <p style="display: none !important;"><span class="wpcf7-form-control-wrap referer-page"><input class="wpcf7-form-control wpcf7-text referer-page" name="referer-page" type="hidden" value="https://cosmosmagazine.com/" data-value="https://cosmosmagazine.com/" aria-invalid="false" /></span></p> <p><!-- Chimpmail extension by Renzo Johnson --></form> </div> </div> <p>Be dazzled by beautiful, swirling galaxies and cliffs of dust hiding bright new-born stars as Webb explains the science behind her favourite JWST images, including the Southern Ring Nebula, spiral galaxy NGC 628 and the Cartwheel galaxy.</p> <p>Comparing the Hubble Deep Field with the JWST First Deep Field, we can see just how far technology, engineering and science have come, with JWST seeing further and more clearly than any instrument before it.</p> <p>Australia’s research contribution is highlighted, as Webb discusses some of the incredible science being done by astronomers right here in Australia – work which demonstrates JWST’s unbelievable potential to contribute to an enormous number of fields such as finding the most distant galaxy, early galaxy birth and evolution, dead stars, planets and asteroids, and of course looking for the most promising exoplanetary candidates for signs of life elsewhere in the Universe.</p> <p><!-- Start of tracking content syndication. Please do not remove this section as it allows us to keep track of republished articles --></p> <p><img id="cosmos-post-tracker" style="opacity: 0; height: 1px!important; width: 1px!important; border: 0!important; position: absolute!important; z-index: -1!important;" src="https://syndication.cosmosmagazine.com/?id=217307&amp;title=Webb+on+Webb%3A+How+JWST+peers+back+in+time+at+the+earliest+stages+of+the+Universe" width="1" height="1" /></p> <p><!-- End of tracking content syndication --></p> <div id="contributors"> <p><em><a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/science/webb-on-webb-back-time-early-universe/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This article</a> was originally published on <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Cosmos Magazine</a> and was written by <a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/contributor/clare-kenyon" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Clare Kenyon</a>. Clare Kenyon is a science journalist for Cosmos. An ex-high school teacher, she is currently wrangling the death throes of her PhD in astrophysics, has a Masters in astronomy and another in education. Clare also has diplomas in music and criminology and a graduate certificate of leadership and learning.</em></p> <p><em>Image: </em><em>NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI</em></p> </div>

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The Webb telescope has released its very first exoplanet image – here’s what we can learn from it

<p>Did you ever want to see an alien world? A planet orbiting a distant star, light years from the Sun? Well, the <a href="https://webb.nasa.gov/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)</a> has just returned its first-ever picture of just that – a planet orbiting a distant star.</p> <p>The <a href="https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/09/01/nasas-webb-takes-its-first-ever-direct-image-of-distant-world/?utm_source=TWITTER&amp;utm_medium=NASAWebb&amp;utm_campaign=NASASocial&amp;linkId=179637235" target="_blank" rel="noopener">new images</a> reveal JWST will be a fantastic tool for astronomers aiming to improve their knowledge of exoplanets (planets around other stars) – even better than we had hoped it would be!</p> <p>But for those who’ve grown up on a diet of Star Trek, Star Wars, and myriad other works of science fiction, the images may be underwhelming. No wonderful swirling clouds, in glorious or muted colours. Instead, we just see a blob – a single point of light.</p> <p>So why do these observations have astronomers buzzing with excitement? And what might we learn in the months and years to come?</p> <p><strong>Observing hidden worlds</strong></p> <p>Over the past three decades, we have lived through a great revolution – the dawn of the Exoplanet Era. Where we once knew of no planets orbiting distant stars, and wondered whether the Solar System was unique, we now know planets are everywhere.</p> <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yv4DbU1CWAY?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><figcaption><em><span class="caption">The history of the first 5,000 alien worlds discovered – the dawn of the Exoplanet Era.</span></em></figcaption></figure> <p>At the time of writing, the number of known exoplanets <a href="https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stands at 5,084</a>, and the count grows larger with every week.</p> <p>But the overwhelming majority of those exoplanets are detected indirectly. They orbit so close to their host stars that, with current technology, we simply cannot see them directly. Instead, we observe their host stars doing something unexpected, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-how-to-find-an-exoplanet-part-1-56682" target="_blank" rel="noopener">infer from that the presence</a> of their unseen planetary companions.</p> <p>Of all those alien worlds, only a handful have been seen directly. The poster child for such systems is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HR_8799" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HR 8799</a>, whose four giant planets have been imaged so frequently that astronomers have produced a movie showing them moving in their orbits around their host star.</p> <figure><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KVgKidAuf4o?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" width="440" height="260" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe><figcaption><em><span class="caption">The first video of exoplanets orbiting their star. HR 8799 host four super-Jupiters, and it took seven years of imaging data to produce this movie.</span></em></figcaption></figure> <p><strong>Enter HIP 65426b</strong></p> <p>To gather JWST’s first direct images of an exoplanet, astronomers turned the telescope towards the star HIP 65426, whose massive planetary companion HIP 65426b was <a href="https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017A%26A...605L...9C/abstract" target="_blank" rel="noopener">discovered using direct imaging back in 2017</a>.</p> <p>HIP 65426b is unusual in several ways – all of which act to make it a particularly “easy” target for direct imaging. First, it is a long way from its host star, orbiting roughly 92 times farther from HIP 65426 than the distance between Earth and the Sun. That puts it around 14 billion kilometres from its star. From our point of view, this makes for a “reasonable” distance from the star in the sky, making it easier to observe.</p> <p>Next, HIP 65426b is a behemoth of a world – thought to be several times the mass of the Solar System’s biggest planet, Jupiter. On top of that, it was also previously found to be remarkably hot, with temperature at its cloud tops measuring at least 1,200℃.</p> <p>This combination of the planet’s size and temperature means it is intrinsically bright (for a planet).</p> <figure class="align-center zoomable"><em><a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482618/original/file-20220904-39859-xghmli.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482618/original/file-20220904-39859-xghmli.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482618/original/file-20220904-39859-xghmli.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=444&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482618/original/file-20220904-39859-xghmli.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=444&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482618/original/file-20220904-39859-xghmli.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=600&amp;h=444&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482618/original/file-20220904-39859-xghmli.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=558&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482618/original/file-20220904-39859-xghmli.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=30&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=558&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482618/original/file-20220904-39859-xghmli.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=15&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;h=558&amp;fit=crop&amp;dpr=3 2262w" alt="Four images of HIP 65426b, at four different wavelengths of infrared light." /></a></em><figcaption><em><span class="caption">JWST’s first images of an alien world, HIP 65426b, are shown at the bottom of a wider image showing the planet’s host star. The images were taken at different wavelengths of infrared light.</span> Image: <span class="attribution"><span class="source">NASA/ESA/CSA, A Carter (UCSC), the ERS 1386 team, and A. Pagan (STScI).</span></span></em></figcaption></figure> <p><strong>How were the images taken, and what do they show us?</strong></p> <p>Under normal circumstances, the light from HIP 65426 would utterly overwhelm that from HIP 65426b, despite the distance between them.</p> <p>To get around this problem, JWST <a href="https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/news/1577/a-new-view-of-exoplanets-with-webb/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">carries several “coronagraphs”</a>, instruments that let the telescope block the light from a bright star to look for fainter objects beside it. This is a bit like blocking the headlights of a car with your hand to see whether your friend has climbed out to say hello.</p> <p>Using these coronagraphs, JWST took a series of images of HIP 65426b, each taken at a different wavelength of infrared light. In each image, the planet can be clearly seen – a single bright pixel offset from the location of its obscured stellar host.</p> <p>The images are far from your standard science fiction fare. But they show that the planet was easily detected, standing out like a sore thumb against the dark background of space.</p> <p>The researchers who led the observations (<a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2208.14990" target="_blank" rel="noopener">detailed on the preprint server arXiv</a>) found that JWST is performing around ten times better than expected – a result that has astronomers around the globe excited to see what comes next.</p> <p>Using their observations, they determined the mass of HIP 65426b (roughly seven times that of Jupiter). Beyond that, the data reveal the planet is hotter than previously thought (with cloud tops close to 1,400℃), and somewhat smaller than expected (with a diameter about 92% that of Jupiter).</p> <p>These images paint a picture of an utterly alien world, different to anything in the Solar System.</p> <p><strong>A signpost to the future</strong></p> <p>The observations of HIP 65426b are just the first sign of what JWST can do in imaging planets around other stars.</p> <p>The incredible precision of the imaging data suggests JWST will be able to obtain direct observations of planets smaller than previously expected. Rather than being limited to planets more massive than Jupiter, it should be able to see planets comparable to, or even smaller than, Saturn.</p> <p>This is a really exciting. You see, a basic rule of astronomy is that there are lots more small things than big things. The fact JWST should be able to see smaller and fainter planets than expected will <em>greatly</em> increase the number of possible targets available for astronomers to study.</p> <p>Beyond that, the precision with which JWST carried out these measurements suggests we will be able to learn far more about their atmospheres than expected. Repeated observations with the telescope could even reveal details of how those atmospheres vary with time.</p> <p>In the coming years, then, expect to see many more images of alien worlds, taken by JWST. While those pictures might not look like those in science fiction, they will still revolutionise our understanding of planets around other stars.<!-- Below is The Conversation's page counter tag. Please DO NOT REMOVE. --><img style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important;" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189876/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" /><!-- End of code. If you don't see any code above, please get new code from the Advanced tab after you click the republish button. The page counter does not collect any personal data. More info: https://theconversation.com/republishing-guidelines --></p> <p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/jonti-horner-3355" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Jonti Horner</a>, Professor (Astrophysics), <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/university-of-southern-queensland-1069" target="_blank" rel="noopener">University of Southern Queensland</a></em></p> <p><em>This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-webb-telescope-has-released-its-very-first-exoplanet-image-heres-what-we-can-learn-from-it-189876" target="_blank" rel="noopener">original article</a>.</em></p> <p><em>Image: NASA/ESA/CSA, A Carter (UCSC), the ERS 1386 team, and A. Pagan (STScI)</em></p>

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New Australian telescope to help find far-flung galaxies

<p dir="ltr">A new multi-lensed telescope will give Australian astronomers a new set of eyes to search for and study ultra-faint galaxies and astronomical objects in the southern hemisphere.</p> <p dir="ltr">Appropriately named the Huntsman Telescope, the instrument is made up of 10 Canon super-telephoto lenses and has begun science operations at the Siding Spring observatory in north-central NSW, near the town of Coonabarabran.</p> <p dir="ltr">Along with spying distant astronomical objects and galaxies, the telescope is expected to be used to view transient astronomical events, such as sudden explosions of stars.</p> <p dir="ltr">Scientists hope to use the Huntsman to further our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve, how they engage with structures around them, and what happens when galaxies collide.</p> <p dir="ltr">According to Dr Lee Spitler, the Principal Investigator of the Huntsman Telescope, the telescope’s work will be crucial for understanding what could happen if our Milky Way Galaxy ever collided with its neighbour, the Andromeda Galaxy, which is theorised to occur in 4.5 billion years.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The Huntsman Telescope is pioneering the way in which we view our Southern skies by capturing images of the faintest galaxy structures that conventional telescopes simply couldn’t,” Dr Spitler said in a <a href="https://spaceaustralia.com/index.php/news/new-huntsman-telescope-turns-its-eyes-sky" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-b2b971d8-7fff-8d04-3a74-6ad790618068"></span></p> <p dir="ltr">“The ability to observe the remnants of galaxies colliding with each other and searching for the faintest and smallest galaxies in the Universe will help us understand the potential fate of the Milky Way in the far distant future.”</p> <p dir="ltr"><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/08/huntsman-telescope.jpg" alt="" /></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>The Huntsman Telescope looks deep into space at the Siding Spring Observatory. Image: Macquarie University</em></p> <p dir="ltr">Though named after a spider, PhD candidate Sarah Caddy said the Huntsman Telescope’s ten individual “eyes” was inspired by the northern hemisphere’s Dragonfly Array program, but its technology has been pushed even further.</p> <p dir="ltr">“The Huntsman’s new suite of powerful computers enable each lens or ‘eye’ of the Huntsman to operate independently of each other. This will allow the telescope to autonomously detect ultra-fast transient events like stellar flares from distant stars or even more exotic phenomena like aiding the search for origin of fast radio bursts that continue to elude astronomers,” Ms Caddy explained.</p> <p dir="ltr">“After the success of Dragonfly in the northern hemisphere, it certainly makes sense to have a similar facility here in the Southern Hemisphere to access parts of the sky that Dragonfly can’t. </p> <p dir="ltr">“Not only that, but Australia is home to many world-class radio telescope facilities. Combining data from radio surveys of the southern sky with Huntsman optical data will help us piece together a more complete view of how galaxies evolve.” </p> <p dir="ltr">“Even the geographical location of Australia is important for Huntsman’s transient science goals. Huntsman will contribute to the growing number of Australian rapid response facilities aiming to capture events like the optical counterparts to Fast Radio Burst and Gravitational Wave progenitors.</p> <p dir="ltr">“We are so excited to see the project move from the commissioning phase into full-time science mode, and I can’t wait to see how this amazing new facility will help Astronomers explore our Universe in the years to come,” she concluded.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span id="docs-internal-guid-105d4c57-7fff-bfbf-50d3-215a65a3ee12"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Macquarie University</em></p>

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James Webb Telescope captures oldest galaxy

<p dir="ltr">After its <a href="https://oversixty.com.au/entertainment/technology/nasa-releases-highest-resolution-images-of-infrared-universe" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first images</a> spread like wildfire across the internet, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is believed to have broken the record for the oldest galaxy ever detected.</p> <p dir="ltr">Scientists from the Harvard and Smithsonian Center of Astrophysics have identified a 13.5-billion-year-old galaxy called GLASS-z13, which dates to 300 million years after the Big Bang.</p> <p dir="ltr">The previous record-holder was a galaxy known as GN-Z1, spotted by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2016, with its light taking 13.4 billion years to reach Hubble.</p> <p dir="ltr">The team of researchers, who shared their findings in a pair of preprints published on Wednesday, also identified another galaxy, GLASS-z11, which is roughly the same age as GLASS-z13.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-52462869-7fff-9362-ee05-0113f733676e">"We found two very compelling candidates for extremely distant galaxies," Rohan Naidu, one of the researchers who detected GLASS-z13 in Webb's data, told <em><a href="https://go.skimresources.com/?id=35871X943606&isjs=1&jv=15.2.4-stackpath&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.businessinsider.com%2Fwebb-space-telescope-found-oldest-and-most-distant-known-galaxy-2022-7&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2F2329601-jwst-has-found-the-oldest-galaxy-we-have-ever-seen-in-the-universe%2F&xs=1&xtz=-600&xuuid=388e4cc6413616544971c2f592b98908&abp=1&xcust=xid%3Afr1658964936510ffc&xjsf=other_click__auxclick%20%5B2%5D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">New Scientist</a></em>. </span></p> <p><img src="https://oversixtydev.blob.core.windows.net/media/2022/07/glass-z13-1.jpg" alt="" width="1280" height="720" /></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>The red circle captured by the James Webb Space Telescope is believed to be the oldest galaxy ever observed. Image: Naidu et al, P. Oesch, T. Treu, GLASS-JWST, NASA/CSA/ESA/STScI</em></p> <p dir="ltr">"If these galaxies are at the distance we think they are, the universe is only a few hundred million years old at that point."</p> <p dir="ltr">Researchers told the publication that these two galaxies are relatively small compared to the Milky Way galaxy, which is 100,000 light-years wide. In comparison, GLASS-z13 is approximately 1600 light-years wide, while GLASS-z11 is 2,300 light-years in diameter.</p> <p dir="ltr">"With the advent of JWST, we now have an unprecedented view of the universe thanks to the extremely sensitive NIRCam instrument," researchers explained in the <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.09434" target="_blank" rel="noopener">preprint</a>.</p> <p dir="ltr">Though the JWST commenced science operations in mid-July, it is expected that it will help scientists uncover more about the universe’s age and evolution. </p> <p dir="ltr"><a href="https://webb.nasa.gov/content/science/firstLight.html#:~:text=Webb%20will%20be%20a%20powerful,darkness%20of%20the%20early%20universe." target="_blank" rel="noopener">NASA attributes this</a> to its ability to peer further back in time - as far as the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang - allowing for the discovery of previously unseen galaxies.</p> <p><span id="docs-internal-guid-9589b833-7fff-c5fc-c0d6-834b46d8fe93"></span></p> <p dir="ltr"><em>Image: Naidu et al, P. Oesch, T. Treu, GLASS-JWST, NASA/CSA/ESA/STScI</em></p>

Technology

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New contact lenses with inbuilt telescope unveiled

<p>A revolutionary new contact lens with a built in telescope could help people with the most common form of sight loss regain their vision. Just a wink of the eye is enough for the lens to zoom in, which will increase peripheral vision by three fold.</p><p>The new technology will help sufferers of age-related macular degeneration, the biggest cause of sight loss. People affected also lose their central vision, making it difficult to read and recognise faces.</p><p>Developed by Swiss researchers, the new 1.55 millimetre-thick contact lens contains an extremely thin, reflective telescope, which is activated by winks but not blinks. The telescope will be activated by a wink to the right eye and deactivated by a wink from the left eye.</p><p>“We think these lenses hold a lot of promise for low vision and age-related macular degeneration,” said Eric Tremblay from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in California on Friday.</p><p>“At this point this is still research, but we are hopeful it will eventually become a real option for people with AMD.”</p><p><em>Image credit:&nbsp;<span class="full-name"><span class="p-name customisable-highlight">BKGjewelry twitter</span><a href="https://twitter.com/BKGjewelry" class="u-url profile"><br></a></span></em></p><p><em><span class="full-name"><span class="p-name customisable-highlight"><strong>Related links:&nbsp;</strong><br></span></span></em></p><p><a href="http://oversixty.com.au/health/eye-care/2014/11/wearing-contact-lenses/" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>Things every contact lens wearer should know</strong></em></span></a></p><p><a href="http://oversixty.com.au/health/eye-care/2014/09/understanding-what-happens-to-your-eyesight-as-you-age/" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>Understanding what happens to your eyesight as you age</strong></em></span></a></p><p><a href="http://oversixty.com.au/health/eye-care/2014/11/what-your-family-history-says-about-your-eyesight/" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><em><strong>What your family history says about your eyesight</strong></em></span></a></p>

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