Daily Archives: March 16, 2024

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The wisps of gas tell the story of a monumental explosion.

A clip from NOIRLab's video shows the remnants of a supernova explosion.

The Vela supernova exploded into a vast array of delicate filaments and veils of gas almost 11,000 years ago. Now, you can explore the glowing, gassy aftermath in a dazzling new portrait of the cosmic corpse. Scientists took the data for the image with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), an instrument mounted to the Victor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope in Chile.The telescope is operated by the National Science Foundations ground-based astronomy research institute, the National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab).

At 1.3 gigapixels, the image is one of the largest ever created of this object. To put this in perspective, one gigapixel equals one billion pixels.

The image above was released March 12. You can read the full press release here. You can also go here to manually zoom around the image on NOIRLabs web site.

Located about 800 light-years from Earth in the Vela constellation, the supernova remnant is one of the closest to us and spans nearly 100 light-years. The light that we see is emitted by gas heated by the shockwave from the supernova explosion. Per the NOIRLab release, When the star exploded 11,000 years ago, its outer layers were violently stripped away and flung into the surrounding region, driving the shockwave that is still visible today.

The DECam is one of the most powerful cameras on the planet. It was originally built to carry out the Dark Energy Survey, which captured light from hundreds of thousands of galaxies up to 8 billion light-years away. One image taken with DECam is about 570 megapixels.

Separate images were taken with different narrowband filters, each for observing light from different ionized elements. These images were later combined to create a false-color image.

Other features captured by DECam include the remnants neutron star, the Vela Pulsar. In addition to the pulsar, the image showcases open star clusters, planetary nebulas, and globular star clusters.

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NOIRLab releases jaw-dropping images, video of remnants from massive star explosion | Astronomy.com - Astronomy Magazine

The Orion nebula as seen by the JWST. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/S. Fuenmayor/PDRs4All

In the warm, dusty disk called d203-506 around a young star in the constellation Orion, oceans worth of water is being destroyed and replenished every month, new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal.

Because water is vital for life along with energy, bioessential elements like carbon, and favorable climatic conditions knowing where water exists and in what abundance helps astronomers determine the potential habitability of planets.

The latest observations of d203-506, which lies more than 1,000 light-years from Earth, show how water molecules are destroyed and re-formed in the conditions inside planet-forming disks. The recurring cycle makes water molecules lighter by decreasing the quantity of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen sensitive to temperature. (Normal hydrogen has only a proton and an electron, while deuterium also contains a neutron.) In addition to helping scientists understand how water evolves before being integrated into planets, the latest findings could also explain the composition of Earths oceans, which have low amounts of deuterium compared to those found around very young stars.

Its a lot of very sound and strong observational work, says Manasvi Lingam, an astrobiologist at the Florida Institute of Technology, who was not involved with the study, which was published Feb. 23 in Nature Astronomy. Although its impossible to determine the amount of water that will eventually be part of planets that may or may not coalesce in this disk, the work has determined the available water budget in the system, he says, which is an important step toward a better understanding of planetary evolution.

The protoplanetary disk d203-506 can be likened to a pressure cooker, says Benot Tabone, a researcher at the University of Paris-Saclay in France and a co-author of the new study. Hydrogen gas, warmed by ultraviolet (UV) radiation from a nearby cluster of massive stars, is escaping this disk at such incredible speed that the entire disk should evaporate within a million years. The escaped gas envelopes the disk as a thick atmosphere not unlike the one blanketing Earth revealing the disk within as a silhouette and preventing even the most powerful telescopes from peeking inside. The incessant stellar radiation has a potential upside, though: Once infused with radiation, which scientists think is 100,000 times more intense than that from our own Sun, the gas emits in infrared wavelengths, making the region a perfect target for JWST.

The new findings were collected as part of the PDRs4All program, an international collaboration coordinated by a core team of 20 scientists dedicated to observing pockets of the cosmos infused with UV radiation from massive stars.

Using JWST, were able to detect molecules with so much precision that we actually need experts in other areas to understand in its entirety the phenomenon and mechanisms that were observing, says Marion Zannese, a graduate student at the University of Paris-Saclay and the studys lead author.

Detecting the full cycle of water in this region required two of the telescopes instruments. The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) captured the destruction of water by capturing the photons emitted from hydroxyl radicals made up of a hydrogen and an oxygen atom created when UV radiation destroys (or photodisassociates) a water molecule, knocking off one of its oxygen atoms. The hydroxyl radicals are left rotating very, very fast almost to the point where the molecule could break up, says Zannese.

When we detect a photon that is coming from a rotating OH [hydroxyl radical], it means that a water molecule has just been photodisassociated, explains Tabone. By counting the number of photons emitted, you count the number of water molecules that are being photodisassociated.

That count, combined with computer models incorporating the known intensity of the UV radiation from the nearby stars, revealed the huge volume of water oceans worth being evaporated from the disk every month.

Meanwhile, data from JWSTs Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) detected another signal from the hydroxyl radicals, which suggests they then fuse with a hydrogen atom to form a water molecule the familiar H2O, says Zannese. And the NIRSpec measurements suggest this is occurring at a higher rate than the speed with hich water is being destroyed.

All that water may not ultimately be integrated into planets, though, because it has been found in gas thats being depleted from the disk. But there might be water getting reprocessed the same way in a part of the disk that we cant probe, says Zannese.

Its hard to tell just how many times water molecules were broken apart in the past, although it appears that it takes one to two days for the cycle to unfold, according to Tabone. The water that were looking at has probably been destroyed and re-formed thousands of times, he says.

The reprocessed water is not formed in the same conditions as water at the beginning, adds Zannese. The disks initial water molecules likely formed as ices on the surfaces of miniscule dust grains in temperatures as low as 418 degrees Fahrenheit (250 degrees Celsius). That water would have been enriched in deuterium, whose amount diminishes with warmer conditions, such as those as observed in d203-506. In this way, the water cycle ultimately changes the composition of water in that region, says Zannese.

A similar process likely occurred in our own solar systems past. While most of Earths water formed in frigid conditions that existed long before the Suns birth, scientists think a fraction of this water evaporated and re-formed at higher temperatures within the protoplanetary disk surrounding our young Sun, just as is happening in d203-506 now.

In the coming months, Tabone, Zannese, and the PDRs4All team plan to further probe the complex chemistry of the region by studying additional data taken by JWST during its observations, which includes a myriad of other molecules.

We really want to continue studying these small, excited molecules and get everything we can out of them, says Zannese.

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JWST spots oceans' worth of water evaporating from a distant disk - Astronomy Magazine

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The findings help understand potential links between radiation, early planetary systems, and 'the origins of life.'

The Orion nebula as seen by the JWST. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/S. Fuenmayor/PDRs4All

The Orion Nebula is one of the most iconic objects in the night sky. Its also a hotbed for star formation, with hundreds of stars spread out across a relatively small patch.

But one of those stars, is having a bit of bad luck. A protoplanetary disk designated d203-506, orbiting around a small red dwarf, was on track for planet formation, but it was recently discovered that the massive neighborhood stars are causing the disk to lose about one Earth-mass worth of material per year. The disk is surrounded by higher-massed stars, around 10 times the mass of the Sun. Astronomers have detailed their observations in a new study published byScience.They found that the star may not be able to form any Jupiter-sized planets after all, and theres a possibility that the problem wont stop there.

Data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Atacama Large Millimeter-submillimeter Array (ALMA) revealed that intense bursts of far-ultraviolet (FUV) radiation are leading to parts of the protoplanetary disk to evaporate. These disks contain the building blocks of planets, moons, asteroids, and comets.

Olivier Berne, an astrophysicist at the National Centre for Scientific Research and lead author of the study, says that the intense FUV radiation fields heat and ionizes the gas, exciting them to higher velocities. But these velocities are so great that gas escapes from the disk and disperses into the interstellar medium. The star at the center of d203-506 is a red dwarf the smallest kind of star there is. This means it also has a pretty light center of gravity compared to stars closer in size to the Sun.

The entire disk only has about 10 Jupiter masses worth of material, according to Berne, which means that in less than a million years, all the mass from this disk could have disappeared due to photoevaporation. He further explains that one million years is about how long it takes a gas giant like Jupiter to form, so this definitely means the star wont be getting any Jupiter-sized planets or any planets, for that matter

Our findings indicate that photoevaporation in d203-506 will drastically affect the potential for planet formation, both gas giants and Earth-like planets, Berne says. Of course, we cannot predict exactly what will happen in d203-506, but what is important is that we demonstrate that photoevaporation and the presence of nearby massive stars is critical to understand planet formation, Berne says.

In order to improve and expand this understanding, Berne and colleagues have been granted further time on JWST to build a catalog of similar protoplanetary disks in the Orion Nebula. Astronomers would then be able to map the fates of similar stars and help create and develop models that could be applied to other star-forming clusters as well.

A big part of undertaking a task like this is understanding the role that larger stars play in stellar nurseries. Berne gives the example of the Sun: While d203-506 could seem doomed to outside eyes, the Sun formed in a similar environment, in the midst of stars much larger than itself. If its protoplanetary disk was doomed, you wouldnt be reading this right now. The Sun might just be a lonely speck in the night sky.

I think one important thing that we need to deconstruct in our mind is the idea that star and planet formation is isolated, Berne says. That is not true, and the effects of the local environment, in particular of radiation, may be instrumental in the evolution of early planetary systems and the origins of life.

Continued here:

Radiation is vaporizing a young star's disk in the Orion Nebula - Astronomy Magazine

Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.

2024 March 12

Explanation: What's that over the horizon? What may look like a strangely nearby galaxy is actually a normal rocket's exhaust plume -- but unusually backlit. Although the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket was launched from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, USA, its burned propellant was visible over a much wider area, with the featured photograph being taken from Akureyri, Iceland. The huge spaceship was lifted off a week ago, and the resulting spectacle was captured soon afterward with a single 10-second smartphone exposure, before it quickly dissipated. Like noctilucent clouds, the plume's brightness is caused by the Twilight Effect, where an object is high enough to be illuminated by the twilight Sun, even when the observer on the ground experiences the darkness of night. The spiral shape is caused by the Falcon rocket reorienting to release satellites in different directions. Stars and faint green and red aurora appear in the background of this extraordinary image.

Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) NASA Official: Amber Straughn; Specific rights apply. NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U.

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APOD: 2024 March 12 A Galaxy Shaped Rocket Exhaust Spiral - Astronomy Picture of the Day

Best laptops 2024: Jump Menu

Whether you're running cutting-edge astronomy software or the best photo editing apps like Adobe Photoshop, we're here to help. The best laptop shouldn't just look good but must run the most graphically intensive workloads without a hitch. They should also have a stunning, expansive display with accurate colors.

Indeed, there are many factors to consider when choosing the best laptop, and it'll massively depend on your budget and particular needs. The latest 16-inch MacBook Pro powered by the M3 Max processor, for example, is one of the most powerful machines we've ever seen but obviously won't suit all budgets.

You may find that a gaming laptop, meanwhile, is particularly suited to your needs given they're built with high-performance and graphically-intensive applications in mind, fitted with the right cooling technology to maximize performance. Read on to discover the models we'd recommend in various categories.

Best overall

Apple MacBook Pro (M3 Pro, 2023)

A great performance machine with a long battery life, ideal for running heavy-duty software on the move.

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Best portable

Apple MacBook Air M2 15-inch laptop

An amazingly thin laptop that offers maximum performance on the move. It has great battery life and boasts powerful specs too.

Read more below

Best battery life

MacBook Pro 16-inch (M2 Max, 2023)

A near 19-hour lifespan is impressive perfect for on-the-go work, though it is heavier than other models in this guide.

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Best for students

This is one of the best value models around, ideal for students, it has huge amounts of RAM and heaps of connectivity options, but the battery could be better.

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Best 2-in-1

Microsoft Surface Laptop Studio 2

A great choice for on-the-go multi-taskers, especially those with graphic-heavy work. It doubles as a tablet too.

Read more below

Best gaming laptop

Boasting an attractive, minimalist design, this laptop is perfect for graphics-heavy workloads. It's 240Hz OLED display is allegedly the most responsive ever.

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Keumars Afifi-Sabet

Keumars is the technology editor at sister site Live Science. He has written for a variety of publications including ITPro, The Week Digital, ComputerActive and TechRadar Pro. He has worked as a technology journalist for more than five years, having previously held the role of features editor with ITPro.

The best performance for the price in a great-looking package.

CPU: 11-core Apple M3 Pro

RAM: 36GB unified memory

GPU: 14-core integrated graphics

Display: 14.2-inch 2,048x1,536-pixel liquid retina XDR

Battery size: 70 Whr

Weight: 3.4 pounds

Dimensions: 12.31 x 8.71 x 0.61 inches

Great performance

Crisp and bright display

Long battery life

Not as powerful as the 16-inch MacBook Pro

Expensive

Buy it if

You want a powerful MacBook you can take with you: If you need to run heavy-duty software while on the move.

You want to run intensive workloads: The M3 series processors are among the best out there for most intensive workloads.

Don't buy it if:

You want the most powerful machine money can buy: The 16-inch MacBook Pro offers much more power.

You're running a tight budget:This is not the right machine for you if you're looking to get as much value for money as possible.

The bottom line

The MacBook Pro 14-inch (M3 Pro, 2023) offers a great balance between performance, portability and a premium user experience.

The 14-inch MacBook Pro strikes a perfect balance between the portability of a smaller and sleeker laptop and the high-performance levels that you may expect from the M3 series of custom-built Apple processors.

These components render the MacBook Pro ideal for graphically intensive workloads suitable for gamers as well as creatives and graphic design professionals alike, thanks to the 11-core CPU and integrated 14-core graphics component.

Testing by Laptop showed, for instance, that it achieved 51 frames per second at 1200p on the Civilization VI benchmark just 2fps shy of the premium laptop average. Its display is just as good-looking as you'd come to expect, meanwhile, with the liquid retina XDR technology making the screen pop.

This laptop has the same high build quality and design you'd expect from a premium Apple machine, meanwhile, and its battery life is exceptionally long compared with many other non-MacBook contenders.

It's also considerably cheaper than the larger and far more specced-up MacBook variations, including the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 Max chip. We'd keep that mind too, meaning it isn't suitable for those either on a tight budget or those willing to spend as much as it takes for the most powerful machine.

There's no beating Apple's M3 Max processor.

CPU: 16-core Apple MacBook M3 Max

RAM: 48GB unifieid memory

GPU: 40-core integrated graphics

Display: 16.2-inch, 3,456x2,234-pixel liquid retina XDR

Battery size: 100 Whr

Weight: 4.8 pounds

Dimensions: 14.01 x 9.77 x 0.67 inches

Unrivalled performance

Alluring display

Very long battery life

Incredibly expensive

Might be overkill for some users

Buy it if

You want the most powerful MacBook: If you aren't willing to compromise on power and performance, there's no looking anywhere else.

You need maximum power on the go: The MacBook Pro's excellent battery life makes it an ideal travel companion.

Don't buy it if:

You need to stick to a budget: The best-performing MacBook Pro is also its most expensive.

You don't need this much power: There are better options out there if you aren't planning on running the heaviest workloads.

The bottom line

The Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch (M3 Max, 2023) is an absolute powerhouse of a machine that might well blow you away.

The highest-spec 16-inch MacBook Pro powered with the M3 Max processor is without a doubt one of the best laptops out there for creatives and users keen on running the heaviest workloads. But the unfortunate downside is that it'll set you back a huge amount of money.

We reviewed a previous version of the 16-inch MacBook Pro in 2021 and found that it offered desktop-class performance thanks to its M1 chip coupled with an incredible display.

The latest model features a far more advanced version of Apple's custom-built chip, with a 16-core processor and 40-core integrated graphics.

The 3,456 by 2,234-pixel liquid retina XDR display is also as sharp as ever, giving you an expansive and crisp panel with accurate colors for any media-centric tasks. The machine also allows for a refresh rate of up to 120Hz for a smoother experience.

Far from being a cherry on top, a major reason why you'd choose the MacBook Pro 16-inch is that battery life isn't compromised, which is a major risk with high-powered desktop-class laptops.

You can enjoy up to 22 hours of movie playback, according to the manufacturer, although this might be a little less with real-world usage.

Still the best Windows laptop in 2024.

CPU: Intel 13th-Gen Core i7 Evo

RAM: 16GB

GPU: Nvidia GeForce RTX 4050

Display: 15.6-inch, 1,920 x 1,200-pixel

Battery size: 86 Whr

Weight: 4.2 pounds

Dimensions: 13.57 x 9.06 x 0.71 inches

Sleek design

Lightweight for its size

Great performance

Stunning display

Underwhelming battery life

Higher-end configurations very pricy

Buy it if

You want the best Windows laptop: There's a great array of Windows laptops to choose from, but the latest XPS 15 is a highlight.

You need a gorgeous display: OLED brings out the best of the XPS 15's display with stunning blacks and great colors.

Don't buy it if:

You need to work on the move: We'd recommend staying away from the XPS 15 if you're often using a laptop where power isn't accessible.

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Best laptops for astronomers and astrophotographers in 2024 - Space.com

There's a bit of tension right now in the U.S. astronomy community and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it has to do with telescopes extremely large telescopes, in fact. Here's what's going on.

The National Science Foundation (NSF), a source of public funding that two powerful next-gen observatories have been banking on for financial support, is facing pressure to go forward with only one telescope. This is because last month, the National Science Board which is basically an advisory committee for the NSF recommended that it cap its giant telescope budget at $1.6 billion. This is a lot of money, but it's just not enough for both. The board even says the NSF will have until only May of this year to decide which telescope gets the go-ahead.

Yet, both telescopes are already in the middle of construction, both are equally important and both are actually supposed to work together to fulfill a wide-eyed dream for astronomers. Because of how utterly huge they're meant to be, they're expected to one-up even the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) in many ways. That's the gold-mirrored, silvery-shielded trailblazer sitting a million miles from Earth right now, finding deep space gems so quickly it's normalizing us to seeing things humanity once couldn't fathom seeing. Imagine something better.

Related:Scientists bury time capsule to celebrate upcoming Extremely Large Telescope

"To my knowledge, neither telescope today has a path forward without the investment by NSF," John O'Meara, chief scientist at the Keck Observatory, told Space.com. "I've said in other interviews that 'great vision should drive great budget, not vice versa,' and I believe it here."

One of the big scopes is the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). It's taking shape as you read this in the clear-skied deserts of Chile, and it's projected to cost something like $2.54 billion as a whole. The other is called The Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). That one's location is a bit more controversial. It's planned to decorate a mountain in Hawaii called Mauna Kea, but locals have protested the decision because this stunning volcanic peak that boasts low humidity and gentle winds (perfect conditions for astronomy) is extremely meaningful in native Hawaiian culture. It's a fraught situation, as 13 other telescopes already live in the area and some local people say the facilities are impacting the natural environment. In terms of cost, however, the projected amount is just about symmetrical to the GMT's.

"They're expensive," Eric Isaacs, the president of the Carnegie Institution for Science, which has provided a sizable amount of private funding for the GMT, told Space.com "Not so much that the NSF couldn't do it but they'd have to move things around and decide that's a priority."

As of now, both telescope crews seem to remain hopeful while waiting for a decision.

"Our international consortium is fully committed to successfully completing the $2.54 billion Giant Magellan Telescope," the GMT team told Space.com.

"We read with great interest the NSB's recommendation to the NSF and are eager to work with the NSF to advance US leadership in astronomy for the next generation of astronomers," a spokesperson for the TMT told Space.com.

Isaacs acknowledges there's some natural competition due to the $1.6 billion announcement, but all in all, emphasizes that the teams have a united front. "We're sticking together," he said. "We were hoping NSF would come up with anything at this point, and they're really waking up to this."

There's a key reason these telescopes are meant to be companions. Each can find the other's missing pieces; together, they can paint a picture of the universe in its grand totality.

The GMT is going to be on call for the Southern Hemisphere, while the TMT will have the Northern Hemisphere. Both also have complementary expertises. Some things the TMT can do, the GMT won't be as trained on. But the GMT can pick up where the TMT leaves off in other regards. Tag-team vibes. In this way, while holding hands and walking through the cosmos, the telescopes are supposed to be able to execute science our current robotic eyes on the sky simply can't compete with. How could a ground-based telescope view things the spaceborne JWST can't, you wonder? The quick answer is that a telescope on our planet can be bigger than one in space. For now, at least.

The TMT, which just finished polishing the 100th of its 492 total mirror segments, is planned to have a primary mirror that's (obviously) 30 meters, or 100 feet, in diameter. The GMT will have seven 27.6-foot-wide (8.4 m) mirror segments positioned in a pattern that resembles a six-petaled daisy to form a single 83.3-foot-wide (25.4 m) light-collecting surface. The bigger the mirror, the more light you can get. The more light you can get, the deeper you can see, and the dimmer objects you can pick up.

"TMT will deliver images that are more than 12 times sharper than the Hubble Space Telescope and more than four times sharper than those from JWST," the TMT team said in a release.

"These are the instruments for the next decades," Isaacs said.

Plus, both ground-based observatories can be adapted over time because they're physically on our planet. A bunch of astronauts can't exactly travel a million miles to reach Lagrange Point 2, where the JWST is situated, to tinker with the machine. The Hubble Space Telescope could be serviced back in the day because it sits in low Earth orbit but even that was enough of a feat to warrant celebration decades later.

It's fascinating how the science board's recommendation has sent ripples down into politics, managing to make headlines about the country's tricky status as a leader among the stars.

The worry comes from the fact that these telescopes are supposed to represent a significant leap forward for U.S. astronomy and U.S. astronomers.

Already, the European Southern Observatory's giant telescope project (unironically named the Extremely Large Telescope) is walking steadily to completion; China also has plans for its own enormous bridge to the stars.

"From our view, the most important thing is, let's at least build one," Isaacs said. "If we don't, we're out of the game, and China and the EU [European Union] are going to continue on. But we certainly want to advocate for two at this point, because we think it really keeps us in a leadership position."

In fact, soon after the board presented its $1.6 billion recommendation, Congress released its Fiscal Year 2024 funding bill. In this bill, Congress says it would like the nation to have a "two-observatory footprint" via the U.S. Extremely Large Telescope (USELT) program, though funding levels weren't specified. Interestingly, it does mention that the NSF, in total, will get $9.06 billion to work with. Still, the NSB's number remains the only one scientists have to contend with as of yet for the telescope program.

"I think that number, it sends a message," Isaacs said. "I mean, we have roughly a third of what we need, but we can't build it unless we get NSF involved because it's just going to be hard to raise that kind of money, even from wealthy, private people. It's the same thing with the TMT."

However, it's also worth considering, as Isaacs points out, that $1.6 billion isn't exactly an out-of-the-blue figure. "It wasn't a magic number," he said. "That was the number that was originally in the Astro 2020 report."

Which brings us to the next layer of complexity in the situation.

In short, Astro2020 refers to a super-detailed outline of what the nation's astronomy and astrophysics priorities should be during the 2020s. For this reason, it's also called the Decadal Survey. It's written by the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine but most importantly for this bit of astronomy drama, Astro2020 specifically advocated for at least one extremely large telescope, and "ideally" two: The GMT and the TMT.

"The Astro2020 report is not a mere suggestion," Isaacs said. "It's a very strong statement."

"The Decadal put forward a bold vision for what tools we need and the mandate that we build and use them responsibly," O'Meara said. "I think we can rise to that challenge and work with congress to fund USELT as a two-telescope project. Otherwise, U.S. leadership is at risk."

The slight contradiction, however, is that the report says the NSF should invest $1.8 billion in the project. This issue stems from the survey being a bit dated. It was released in 2021; since then, costs have risen.

"The next generation of telescope projects have gotten so huge and ambitious, and as a result they require an immense amount of coordination and planning," Dillon Brout, an assistant professor of astronomy and physics at Boston University, told Space.com. "While the announcement is indeed a tough pill to swallow, it's commendable that the NSF has made this decision sooner rather than later."

"It is an investment at a scale NSF is not used to for a facility, both in construction and in eventual operations," O'Meara said. "That said, the science demands these capabilities."

There is one aspect of the situation that, when we really sit back and consider it, may feel either humbling or frustrating, depending on your perspective. The NSF's money is public money, aka taxpayer money, aka our money.

The topic has therefore spurred a lot of interesting conversations in this vein. What does this conundrum say about how we fund scientific advancement? What does it say about anyone having an interest in science?

"We must use opportunities when astronomy funding is in the public discourse to reiterate how essential it is to continue to financially support these efforts that will unlock never-before-seen depths of our universe," Brout said. "This is especially true if the United States wants to maintain its position as a world leader in the fields of astronomy, astrophysics and cosmology."

Sometimes, Isaacs says, he'll sit down at a restaurant and wonder how people in the room would react if it were announced that scientists had found an alien.

"I look at the person next to me and say, 'How would you like it if I could tell you there was life on another planet?'" he recalled. "And half of them say, 'Oh, that'd be so cool.' And half of them say 'Why? Why would we spend money on that? We've got to care about our problems on Earth.'"

It's a fair question, and one that's been raised many times in the past. We see a version of it raised when it comes to NASA's modern Artemis moon missions, for instance, and it was absolutely raised during NASA's older Apollo lunar program. And we'll surely see it brought up many more times in the years to come.

But maybe science is worth it. Not just medical science and climate science due to the direct, tangible repercussions they have, but also star science, black hole science and dark energy science. The James Webb Space Telescope has undoubtedly helped humans across the world feel like they're under the same blanket of awe despite tragedy and war, and the first direct image of a black hole, captured a few years ago by the Event Horizon Telescope, was on the front page of every major news outlet for a reason. Space discoveries may not impact our bodies, but they surely impact our perspectives. Beyond that even, a few billion dollars for science advancement is meager compared to the huge sums of public funding allocated for things like defense, which receives many hundreds of billions year after year.

And though Isaacs says the team has received public funding before, including from NASA, to build some relevant instruments for big observatories, private funding right now is leading the charge. For some context, NASA's funding allotment in the FY2024 bill was set at $24.875 billion to "explore the solar system, understand climate change, promote innovation and sustainability in aeronautics, and protect our planet."

"When the opportunity arises to answer the toughest questions the universe can throw at us, astronomy has worked with Congress to fund those tools," O'Meara said. As he underlines, the Rubin Observatory, set to achieve first light in 2025, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, slated to launch to space in 2027, as well as the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope and the JWST of course, already churning out results, are all examples of "going big because the questions are big."

"We should be doing that with USELT as well," he said.

Private funding has worked for other telescopes, such as with the Keck Observatory, but those projects weren't as big as this one. Keck's cost ran into the millions, not the billions.

"Once NSF says they're in, you're going to get everybody interested. Right now, we have 14 members of the consortium, which is a lot, but we are still looking for a way to make ends meet," Isaacs said.

So, where do we go from here?

Well, it seems like we'll know more in May, when the NSF tells us what they've been discussing behind the scenes. "NSF has to come in, or else it's going to be very hard," Isaacs said. "You know, of course, we'll do other things with a lot of other great ideas in astronomy but this is the big idea."

"I'd say astronomy is in a golden age right now," he remarked. "And, to give up on ground-based astronomy at this point would be the wrong time."

Update 3/10: In Eric Isaacs' third-to-last comment, he was referring to the NSF, not NASA. This article has been updated to reflect that.

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Why astronomers are worried about 2 major telescopes right now - Space.com

Senior Project Scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Webb has exceeded every one of our expectations. For example, Webb observed galaxies that existed in the early universe in just a couple of hours. We knew Webb was going to do that, but we didnt project it could between lunch and dinner! Researchers are gleeful. They come up to me, jamming a cell phone into my face with a with data from Webb on it, exclaiming, Look at this! How are the data this good? This is only possible because Webb is supported by hundreds of people in a wide range of roles. Teamwork helped us build, test, and commission Webband continues to keep it operating around the clock.

Science has always been collaborative, but its easier to see now. We all have a place in astronomy and science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. No matter what your passion is, go for it. Dont let anyone tell you that you cant. When youre puzzling through problem sets with other students, that's good practiceyoull work with teams throughout your career.

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The People Behind Webb | Webb - WebbTelescope.org