#telescope-technology

#telescope-technology

The film then reversed the trick and zoomed back toward that Chicago couple and into their bodies to show the equally breathtaking world of our insides, down to the molecular and atomic level.

The atmosphere of TOI 5205b has a lower concentration of heavy elements relative to hydrogen than gas giants in our own solar system, suggesting something different about its formation.

The proposed scale of orbital deployment would represent a significant alteration of the natural night-time light environment at a planetary scale.

Gravitational waves are a form of radiation, and while they have many similarities to light waves, there are some fundamental differences. This recognition is crucial for understanding how these waves behave in the universe.

This system is truly extraordinary. We're seeing the radio equivalent of a laser halfway across the universe. Fundamentally, masers and lasers are focused beams of light in the same frequency. In the realm of astrophysics, these can arise from clouds of dust being excited into a higher energy state from the light emitted by other sources, like stars and black holes.

an electron within a molecule gets excited to a higher-energy state, the electron de-transitions back to the lower energy state, where it emits light of a very specific wavelength in the process. Then, pumped or injected energy re-excites an electron within that very same molecule back into that higher-energy state, over and over.

One of the most exciting aspects is the rich chemistry we detect. We see dozens of different molecules, including some complex organic molecules that contain carbon, the same element that forms the basis of life on Earth. From ACES, we are learning more about how the ingredients for planets, and potentially life itself, can arise in the universe.

"we were all in tears"

The universe is exploding. Or parts of it are. The night sky may seem calm, even serene, but that masks events of a catastrophic and nearly unimaginable scale. Across the galaxy and even the cosmos itself, immense outbursts of energy occur that could easily vaporize our planet. Happily, space is vast, and the terrible distance between these events and us diminishes what we see to a faint glowusually.

At the time the proposed telescope was one of three contenders to make a giant leap in mirror size from the roughly 10-meter diameter instruments that existed then, to approximately 30 meters. This represented a huge increase in light-gathering potential, allowing astronomers to see much further into the universe-and therefore back into time-with far greater clarity.

The Hubble Space Telescope displayed what the Universe looks like. Its successor, JWST, now reveals how the Universe grew up. Galaxies formed and grew massive swiftly: requiring under 300 million years. Larger-scale, more massive structures, like galaxy clusters, take longer. The earliest mature, fully-fledged cluster is CL J1001+0220. Simulations predict such clusters to appear late: after 2-3 billion years. However, proto-clusters, or still-forming galaxy clusters, appear far earlier.

Looking skyward fills us with wonder. Off-world, the Sun, planets, stars, and galaxies all await. Our Solar System encompasses our own cosmic backyard. Farther away, stars and star clusters abound within the Milky Way. Hundreds of billions of stars exist just within our home galaxy. Inside our Local Group, only Andromeda surpasses us in mass, size, and stars. More than 5 million light-years away, galaxies abound in groups and clusters.

A bright star in a nearby galaxy has essentially vanished. Astronomers believe that it died and collapsed in on itself, transforming into the eerie cosmic phenomenon known as a black hole. "It used to be one of the brightest stars in the Andromeda galaxy," says Kishalay De, an astronomer with Columbia University and the Flatiron Institute. "Today, it is nowhere to be seen, even with the most sensitive telescopes."