#deep_space_exploration

It is now expected on November 18th The American company SpaceX announced the postponement of the launch of the prototype of the super-heavy spacecraft Starship for technical reasons. Earlier it became known that the company received permission from the Federal Aviation Administration for the launch, which was planned to take place today, November 17. “We need to replace the grid stabilizer drive, so the launch has been postponed to Saturday,” SpaceX said on social network X (formerly Twitter). [caption id="attachment_82668" align="aligncenter" width="444"] Starship spacecraft[/caption] Didn't take off: the launch of the huge Starship spacecraft was postponed for technical reasons In April, we recall, SpaceX carried out the first successful launch of a rocket with an installed prototype of the Starship spacecraft. The rocket reached an altitude of 39 km. A few seconds after launch, it became known that 5 of the 33 Raptor engines installed on the Super Heavy launch vehicle had failed. As a result, after a little over a minute, the rocket began to collapse and rotate, straying from the correct course. After which the remote destruction system was activated.

Even earlier The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) discovered the two most distant galaxies at redshifts 13.079 and 12.393. This discovery supports the Big Bang theory and further confirms the picture of galaxy formation. The discovery was made possible thanks to a gravitational lens played by the galactic cluster Abell 2744, also known as the Pandora Cluster. This cluster is located about 3.5 billion light-years away, and its gravitational field bends the structure of space-time in such a way that it “magnifies” distant galaxies. Using JWST and its ability to probe early galaxies magnified by this gravitational lens, researcher Bingjie Wang of Penn State University and her colleagues in the JWST UNCOVER program were able to discover these two galaxies with the highest redshifts. [caption id="attachment_82136" align="aligncenter" width="650"] James Webb Space[/caption] Cosmological redshift occurs due to the expansion of the Universe. The further away the galaxy, the more the universe expanded as the light from that galaxy traveled through space to reach our detectors. Galaxies that existed just 300 to 400 million years after the Big Bang emit infrared light that is invisible to the human eye but can be observed by the NIRCam camera and JWST's NIRspec spectrometer. The James Webb Space Telescope discovered two unusual distant galaxies The researchers were able to identify enlarged images of these two high-redshift galaxies - UNCOVER-z13 and UNCOVER-z12 (z indicates redshift, which is the letter used in astrophysics). UNCOVER-z13 has a redshift of 13.079, making it the second most distant galaxy known to date. We see it as it was just 330 million years after the Big Bang. The most distant confirmed galaxy, JADES-GS-z13-0, has a redshift of 13.2 JWST discovered it in 2022. The second galaxy, UNCOVER-z12, has a redshift of 12.393 and ranks fourth on the list of most distant galaxies. We see it as it was just 350 million years after the Big Bang. These two galaxies stand out because of their appearance—unlike other galaxies at comparable redshifts, they do not appear as small dots. In contrast, the UNCOVER-z12 galaxy has a disk approximately 2,000 light-years in diameter, six times larger than other galaxies observed during this period. “The two galaxies have very different properties. Their differences will be the subject of further research. We expected that these galaxies are formed from similar materials, but now we see significant differences between them,” noted Bingji Wang. Despite these differences in the properties of the galaxies, both are fully consistent with the Big Bang model, even so early in the Universe. The model explains how, after the creation of the Universe, galaxies slowly grew, merged with other galaxies and gas clouds, and actively formed stars. This growth contributed to an increase in the diversity of elements contained in young galaxies and the introduction of heavy elements - heavier than hydrogen and helium. The galaxies discovered by UNCOVER JWST are young and small, with low concentrations of heavy elements, and are actively forming stars, supporting the Big Bang theory, as noted by Joel Leja, a member of Wang's team. JWST has the ability to detect galaxies at even higher redshifts than UNCOVER-z13 and -z12. But they were not captured by the gravitational lens created by the Pandora Cluster.

Reconnaissance of the TRAPPIST-1 b atmosphere using the James Webb Telescope: evidence of the influence of “stellar pollution” in the transmission spectra Astronomers have received new data about the planet TRAPPIST-1 b from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). This planet is the closest to its star in the TRAPPIST-1 solar system, which is 40 light-years from Earth. The new observations help deepen our understanding of the star's influence on exoplanets in the habitable zone of cool stars, where there is the potential for liquid water to exist on the planet's surface. “Our study found no evidence of an atmosphere around the planet TRAPPIST-1 b. This could indicate that the planet is either bare rock or has clouds in its upper atmosphere, as well as the presence of a dense molecule such as carbon dioxide, making its atmosphere too thin to detect. However, we have seen that the star is the main factor influencing the observations, and this has implications for observing other planets in the system,” said Sagan astronomer Ryan McDonald of the University of Michigan. The team's main interest was determining the influence of the star on observations of planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system. If we don't get this star right, it will be much more difficult to detect any atmospheric signals on the habitable zone planets TRAPPIST-1 d, e, and f. The James Webb Space Telescope obtained a spectrum of the planet TRAPPIST-1 b TRAPPIST-1, a star smaller and hotter than our Sun, is located about 40 light-years from Earth. The discovery of this star system, consisting of seven Earth-sized planets, has attracted much interest from scientists since its discovery in 2017. Three of these planets are in the habitable zone and are of potential interest in the search for life. [caption id="attachment_64849" align="aligncenter" width="780"] James Webb Space Telescope[/caption] This study, led by Olivia Lim of the Trottier Institute for Exoplanet Research at the University of Montreal, used transmission spectroscopy to study the characteristics of TRAPPIST-1 b. Astronomers examined the light from the central star after it passed through the planet's atmosphere during the transit. This made it possible to see the unique “fingerprints” left by molecules and atoms in the atmosphere. One of the main results of the study was the identification of the significant influence of stellar activity and “contamination” on determining the characteristics of an exoplanet. "Stellar pollution" refers to various factors such as dark spots and bright regions in the photosphere of a star. The team found strong evidence that they play a critical role in shaping the transmission spectra of TRAPPIST-1 b and likely other planets in the system. The activity of the central star can create "false signals" that can mislead observers into thinking they have detected a certain molecule in the exoplanet's atmosphere. This result highlights the need to take stellar contamination into account when planning future observations of all exoplanetary systems. This is especially important for systems like TRAPPIST-1 located around red dwarfs, which can be particularly active and have spots on their surface.