James Webb Space Telescope Weekly Schedule Nov 14, 2022 to Nov 20, 2022

November 15, 2022


Last week James Webb Telescope observed several objects including Herbig-Haro object HH 212, planetary system HR 8799, Saturn's icy moon Enceladus, planet Saturn and its rings, asteroid Salacia. For more details regarding these observations, check out last week's schedule here. This week, James Webb Telescope is scheduled to observe planet Jupiter and its moons Callisto and IO, Sculptor Galaxy - NGC 253, Exoplanet system - 55 Cancri, asteroids leucus, varuna, 2003AZ84, brown Dwarf WISE 0855−0714. Following are the major objects that James Webb Space Telescope will study this week (Nov 14 to Nov 20, 2022) as per the schedule published here. File Link

Image of Callisto from NASA's Galileo spacecraft - Credit: NASA/JPL/ DLR(German Aerospace Center)

The third largest moon in our solar system, Callisto is the second largest moon orbiting Jupiter. It is comparable in size to Mercury. Callisto was once viewed by some scientists as an uninteresting "ugly duckling moon" and a "hunk of rock and ice." That's because there didn't seem to be anything going on in the crater-covered world—nothing like active volcanoes or moving tectonic plates. Data from NASA's Galileo satellite, however, showed that Callisto might be hiding a salty ocean beneath its surface. That discovery added the once-seemingly-dead moon to the list of planets that might contain life. James Webb Telescope is scheduled to observe Callisto on November 15, 2022.

Jupiter's moon IO - Credit: NASA/JPL

Io is a vibrant object. Io, the nearest giant moon to Jupiter, experiences entire surface lava inundations every few thousand years and experiences the highest level of volcanic activity of any moon in the solar system. The black and red material is likely less than a few years old and correlates to the most recent volcanic eruptions. The side of Io that is constantly facing away from Jupiter is shown in this photograph taken by the robotic spacecraft Galileo. Although the colors in this image have been changed to increase contrast, they are actually composite images of infrared, green, and violet light. James Webb Telescope is scheduled to observe IO on November 15, 2022.

Galaxy NGC 253 - redit: NOAJ: Subaru, NASA & ESA: Hubble, ESO: VLT & Danish 1.5-m

One of the dustiest and brightest spiral galaxies that may be seen is the gleaming NGC 253. Some refer to it simply as the Sculptor Galaxy because it lies inside the borders of the southern constellation Sculptor, or the Silver Dollar Galaxy because of how it appears in small telescopes. The dusty island universe, discovered in 1783 by mathematician and astronomer Caroline Herschel, is only 10 million light-years away. The largest galaxy in the Sculptor Group of Galaxies, which is the closest to our own Local Group of Galaxies, is NGC 253, which has a diameter of about 70,000 light-years. This clear color image shows spiral dust lanes and tendrils of dust rising from a galactic disk dotted with newborn star clusters and star formation regions. James Webb Telescope is scheduled to observe NGC 253 on November 16, 2022.

Exoplanet system - 55 Cancri - Credit: NASA

Janssen, also known as 55 Cancri e, orbits the star Copernicus, which is only 41 light years away. Although the molten surface is entirely uninhabitable, Janssen's sister planet, Galileo, hovers in the night sky above the burning horizon. On the dark side of the tidally locked planet, silicates in the atmosphere would condense as clouds, reflecting the lava below. Thus, the sky would be sparkling. 55 Super-Earth exoplanet Cancri e revolves around a G-type star that resembles the Sun. It has an 8.08 Earth mass, completes one orbit around its star in 0.7 days, and is 0.01544 AU away. In 2004, news of its finding was released. James Webb Telescope is scheduled to observe the Exoplanet system - 55 Cancri on November 18, 2022.

Artist’s impression of the brown dwarf WISE 0855-0714 - Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Penn State University.

A brown dwarf is essentially a failed star since it developed through the gravitational collapse of a gas and dust cloud in the same way that stars do, but it did not gather enough mass to trigger the nuclear fusion reactions that give stars their luminosity. WISE 0855 is similar to Jupiter in many ways, with a mass that is around five times that of the gas giant planet. It is around 10 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 250 degrees Kelvin) colder than Jupiter, which has a temperature of 130 degrees Kelvin. James Webb Telescope is scheduled to observe WISE 0855-0714 on November 19, 2022.