Another one of our #JWST #ERS1328 papers hit the arXiv when I was busy with #AAS241 so apologies for the late post -- this one led by Jeff Rich is about the intriguing nature of the nuclear cores in #VV114, complete with #NIRSpec and #MRS SPECTRA!! You know you want to read this for your #JWSTCycle2 proposal... 😉

From Jeff: "We found an AGN where we didn’t expect to, no AGN where others had predicted one, and interesting ISM properties that require a lot more analyses."

https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.02338

1️⃣ 2️⃣ The series of #Nature papers also reports the same transmission spectrum with 2 other instruments on board #JWST: #NIRISS in the paper led by @afeinstein20 et al. and #NIRCam in the paper led by @eahrer et al.
The spectra revealed again a lot of features with a higher resolution than #NIRSpec / PRISM.

What is (really) super impressive is the fact the 3 instruments / 4 modes give nearly the same signal, with basically no systematic at all.

#astronomy #exoplanet

1️⃣ 1️⃣ Here is another transmission spectrum of WASP-39 b taken with #JWST and #NIRSPec but with a different instrumental mode, allowing for higher spectral resolution at a cost of a lower wavelength coverage. The spectrum covers 3-5 microns and reveals the same features due to carbon dioxide (CO2), water (H2O) and sulfur dioxide (SO2). The latter is detected here with a much higher significance (compared to #JWST #NIRSpec / PRISM) due to the higher spectral resolution.

credits: Alderson et al.

8️⃣ The team used this technique (called transmission spectroscopy) to probe the atmosphere of WASP-39b. They thus observed the same #transit event at different wavelengths with a given instrument / mode.

Here an exemple, from Rustamkulov et al. (https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.10487), of the same transit of #WASP-39 b observed from 0.5 to ~6 microns (using #JWST / #NIRSpec-PRISM). All these transit looks to have roughly the same depth, but they are not.

#Astronomy #exoplanet

4️⃣ We knew that its #atmosphere was revealing water (H2O), carbon dioxyde (CO2) as well as sodium (Na) and potassium (K). It was therefore a very good target to #test the instrumental capabilities of #JWST in the near infrared (#NIR).

The objective of the team was therefore to observe that unique object with all instrumental modes of #JWST in the #NIR, to learn about the instrument and understand its limitations (if any). They used #NIRSpec (in 2 different modes), #NIRCAM, and #NIRISS.

How #Webb's #NIRSpec instrument opened up 200 windows to our origins

https://phys.org/news/2022-11-webb-nirspec-instrument-windows.html