James Webb Telescope

I don't have the expertise to answer that one.

Here's what someone who presumably knows more says:

https://www.benjaminleather.com/blog/horsehead-nebula

It’s location is surprisingly easy to find but picking it out is much harder. As mentioned, the Horsehead Nebula sits near Alnitak, the easternmost star in Orion’s Belt. You can find the Horsehead Nebula grazing it just below it to the south.



Unfortunately the gas cloud is actually very faint and there’s usually a very bright star in the same field of view so if you’re trying to look through a telescope eyepiece, it will appear extremely dim if it all. This is why when this gas cloud was first spotted in the night sky that nobody even noticed its distinct shape. A number of astronomers stumbled across it over the years, but the limited capability of their instruments made it hard to carry out detailed studies.

Although its official name is Barnard 33, named after American astronomer Edward Barnard, the discovery of the Horsehead Nebula is rightly credited to another astronomer, Williamina Fleming.
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Seems like it's usually too dim for the human eye to see. The aid of a long exposure seems to be needed.
 
Hubble_LEDA1313424_STScI-01JJADTMJ80R1R4W6KK563RW2C.jpg


Straight Shot: Hubble Investigates Galaxy with Nine Rings (NASA)


(This is actually a Hubble image, not JWST, but I'm going to call it on topic.)
 
webb-STScI-01JNGVBEQFK6C7BXX5R14A6HTM.jpg

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed Herbig-Haro 49/50, an outflow from a nearby still-forming star, in high-resolution near- and mid-infrared light. The intricate features of the outflow, represented in reddish-orange color, provide detailed clues about how young stars form and how their jet activity affects the environment around them.
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NASA’s Webb Telescope Unmasks True Nature of the Cosmic Tornado

(That is a galaxy in the background if you're wondering. It's a chance alignment.)
 
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The Great Zaganza said:
Planet K2-18b , 120 lightyears away, seems to have organic life with a rather high probablity.
James Webb telescope detected dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere, a molecule that is produced by organisms.

further study and attention needed, of course - but we might have found a planet inhabited by Space Cows.

www.space.com

Did we actually find signs of alien life on K2-18b? 'We should expect some false alarms and this may be one'

"A needle in the haystack, or just a sharp piece of hay?"
www.space.com www.space.com
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Phil Plait says:
No, astronomers almost certainly didn’t find biosignatures of life on another planet.

I thought so immediately when I heard about it, but the science behind it is worse than I thought.
 
And now, while we are at astronomy, there is this piece of news from Universe Today: An Interesting Solution to the Hubble Tension: The Universe is Slowly Spinning
It is only a possible solution, achieved by filling the universe with a liquid, and fiddling with the variables until it fits, but it is a solution. One wonders about the nature of this liquid: the exact variables of the proposed solution puts restraints on it, and I would also like to know if it is evenly distributed, or uneven, like, say, dark matter.
 
steenkh said:
And now, while we are at astronomy, there is this piece of news from Universe Today: An Interesting Solution to the Hubble Tension: The Universe is Slowly Spinning
It is only a possible solution, achieved by filling the universe with a liquid, and fiddling with the variables until it fits, but it is a solution. One wonders about the nature of this liquid: the exact variables of the proposed solution puts restraints on it, and I would also like to know if it is evenly distributed, or uneven, like, say, dark matter.
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Does the universe has an axis of rotation? If so in which direction is it?
 
I see I posted this little peace of news in the wrong thread. Sorry about that. It was supposed to go to the Scientific Tidbits thread.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Planet K2-18b , 120 lightyears away, seems to have organic life with a rather high probablity.
James Webb telescope detected dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere, a molecule that is produced by organisms.
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Here on Earth, there is no known mechanism for the production of DMS other than biological activity. There may be an unknown non-biological activity that can produce it elsewhere.

This is like the discovery of phosphene in the upper atmosphere if Venus. Interesting, yes, and a possible biosignature, but not without additional lines of evidence.
 
The Great Zaganza said:
Planet K2-18b , 120 lightyears away, seems to have organic life with a rather high probablity.
James Webb telescope detected dimethyl sulfide in the atmosphere, a molecule that is produced by organisms.

further study and attention needed, of course - but we might have found a planet inhabited by Space Cows.

www.space.com

Did we actually find signs of alien life on K2-18b? 'We should expect some false alarms and this may be one'

"A needle in the haystack, or just a sharp piece of hay?"
www.space.com www.space.com
Click to expand...
And as always in science - a white crow.

“Scientists have discovered dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a molecule thought to have only living sources, on a cold, lifeless comet. The finding calls into question the molecule’s usefulness as a biosignature and the significance of an earlier hint of it in the atmosphere of an alien planet.”
 
EHocking said:
And as always in science - a white crow.

“Scientists have discovered dimethyl sulfide (DMS), a molecule thought to have only living sources, on a cold, lifeless comet. The finding calls into question the molecule’s usefulness as a biosignature and the significance of an earlier hint of it in the atmosphere of an alien planet.”
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Or there could be aliens joyriding on a comet!
 
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