During last year’s Roman Science Inspired by the "Emerging JWST Results" conference, a Science Writer’s Workshop sought to provide writers and journalists with strategies to explain the most important objectives for #NASARoman. (1/7) 🧵
#NASARoman’s advantage will lie in its ability to survey large areas of the sky. Astronomers will use three surveys—developed by the astronomy community—to research: the High Latitude Wide Area Survey, High Latitude Time Domain Survey, and Galactic Bulge Time Domain Survey. (2/7)
By leveraging gravitational microlensing events, where scientists identify exoplanets as their parent star passes in front of a larger, brighter star, astronomers project that #NASARoman will find more than 1,000 exoplanets similar to those in our solar system. (3/7)
#NASARoman will provide precise information about the distances of galaxies as it peers into the early universe with its near-infrared images and spectroscopic vision. Astronomers theorize that it will see more than 10-20 million early galaxies analyze their star formation. (4/7)
#OTD in 2009, the final #Hubble servicing mission launched. SM4 had an ambitious list of tasks designed to bring Hubble to the apex of its scientific capabilities and ensure it would operate for many years to come. (1/3) 🧵
During SM4 astronauts conducted five spacewalks to install two new instruments, repair two other instruments, and replace key components like gyroscopes and batteries. They also prolonged its life by boosting Hubble to a higher orbit. (2/3)
SM4 left Hubble at the peak of its scientific capability, and prepared it for many years of further scientific discovery. Hubble is now expected to continue science operations well into the 2030s. Credit: NASA (3/3)
NASA's Roman Space Telescope could help researchers detect the universe’s FIRST STARS using the wide field of view and rapid survey speed of the upcoming observatory. #NASARoman (1/6) 🧵
The universe’s earliest stars, known as Population III stars, are notoriously hard to detect with even our most powerful observatories due to their great distance and short lifetime. They were made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium. (2/6)
#NASARoman will not seek intact stars. Instead, astronomers will hunt for signs of Pop III stars that have been shredded by black holes, creating a bright and energetic phenomenon known as a tidal disruption event (TDE). (3/6)
TDEs generate light in many wavelengths. The further we look into the early universe, where these early stars primarily reside, the more the optical and UV light is redshifted, into near-infrared wavelengths visible to Roman. (4/6)
“Roman can go very deep and yet cover a very big area of the sky. That's what's needed to detect a meaningful sample of these TDEs,” said Jane Dai, professor of astrophysics at the University of Hong Kong. (5/6)
With this proposed strategy for identifying Pop III stars, there’s an opportunity to explore more of the universe’s mysteries, opening up numerous opportunities to better understand not only the early universe, but also galaxies closer to home. (6/6) https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-204
Researchers using #NASAWebb may have detected atmospheric gases surrounding 55 Cancri e, a hot rocky exoplanet 41 light-years from Earth. This is the best evidence to date for the existence of any rocky planet atmosphere outside our solar system. (1/6) 🧵
The much thinner blankets of gas that almost certainly surround some small, rocky exoplanets have remained elusive. Researchers think they may have finally caught a glimpse of a volatile-rich atmosphere surrounding a rocky planet—55 Cancri e. (2/6)
Light emitted by the hot, highly-irradiated exoplanet 55 Cancri e shows compelling evidence for an atmosphere, probably rich in carbon dioxide or carbon monoxide, which may be bubbling from a vast ocean of lava covering the planet’s surface. (3/6)
#NASAWebb mapped the weather on an exoplanet 280 light-years away, where it’s cloudy on the nightside and clear on the dayside—with equatorial winds howling around the planet at 5,000 miles per hour. (1/6)
WASP-43 b is tidally locked to its star, with one side continuously illuminated and the other in permanent darkness. Although the nightside never receives any direct radiation from the star, strong eastward winds transport heat around from the dayside. (2/6)
The measurements show that the dayside has an average temperature of nearly 2,300 degrees Fahrenheit (1,250 degrees Celsius)— hot enough to forge iron. Meanwhile, the nightside is significantly cooler at 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit (600 degrees Celsius). (3/6)
WASP-43 b is too small and close to its star for a telescope to see directly, but its short orbital period makes it ideal for phase curve spectroscopy, a technique that involves measuring tiny changes in brightness of the star-planet system as the planet orbits the star. (4/6)