SPACE reports, “At long last, particles of water–ice have been discovered in the frozen Kuiper Belt of another star. The discovery, made by the James Webb Space Telescope, is a major step forward in filling in gaps in our understanding of how exoplanets develop.”
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Tag: JWST
James Webb Space Telescope Discovers Water Vapor in Distant Planet’s Atmosphere
SPACE reports, “NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has found water vapor swirling in the air of a distant, boiling-hot alien planet, a new study reports. That exotic world is TOI-421 b, a boiling-hot “sub-Neptune” orbiting a star about 244 light-years from Earth whose atmosphere JWST recently probed in detail.”
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Webb Telescope Spots Possible Signature of Life on Distant Planet
The Washington Post reports, “A distant planet’s atmosphere shows signs of molecules that on Earth are associated only with biological activity, a possible signal of life on what is suspected to be a watery world, according to a report published Wednesday that analyzed observations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The peer-reviewed report in the Astrophysical Journal Letters presents more questions than answers, acknowledges numerous uncertainties and does not declare the discovery of life beyond Earth, something never conclusively detected. But the authors do claim to have found the best evidence to date of a possible “biosignature” on a planet far from our solar system.”
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James Webb Space Telescope Deploys ADIR
SPACE reports that the James Webb Space Telescope deployed its Aft Deployable Instrument Radiator (ADIR) Thursday at about 8:38 a.m. EST. The ADIR “is a 4 foot (1.2 meters) by 8 foot (2.4 m) panel attached to the back of the observatory and connected by aluminum foil straps to Webb’s instruments. The radiator is covered in honeycomb cells with an ultra-black surface, allowing the mechanism to pull heat away from the observatory instruments and send it into space.”
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AIAA Statement on Successful Launch of James Webb Space Telescope
For Immediate Release
December 25, 2021 – Reston, Va. – The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Executive Director Dan Dumbacher made the following statement:
“On behalf of the 30,000 professional and student members of AIAA, we congratulate NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), and the entire James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team on today’s successful launch. This amazing observatory will allow us to look into the history of our cosmos. We look forward to the new discoveries from JWST that will help us understand the origins of the universe.
Countless AIAA professional members have dedicated years of their careers to the research, engineering, testing, and development of this incredible astronomy mission. In addition, numerous academic and industry partners on the JWST team are AIAA corporate members who contributed mightily to this mission. Applying their technical expertise with determination and perseverance since 1996 has led us to this exciting day. Over the years, they have chronicled their work on JWST by authoring articles for AIAA journals and meeting papers for AIAA forums. These original research results and technological progress on JWST have been published in AIAA’s Aerospace Research Central, at arc.aiaa.org, to fulfill our commitment to ensuring students and professionals can stay current on the most important advances in aerospace science and technology. Through the combined efforts of AIAA members on the JWST mission, they are shaping the future of aerospace.”
Media Contact: Rebecca B. Gray, [email protected], 804-397-5270 cell
About AIAA
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) is the world’s largest aerospace technical society. With nearly 30,000 individual members from 91 countries, and 100 corporate members, AIAA brings together industry, academia, and government to advance engineering and science in aviation, space, and defense. For more information, visit aiaa.org, or follow AIAA on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
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