There is too much dust in the universe.
The "dust budget crisis" is a major problem for astronomy and needs to be solved.
The James Webb Space Telescope will release its first operational images on July 12 and researchers hope to finally sort out the dust issue. Dust-produced Wolf-Rayet stars will be one of the early-stage observations that will be included in the final product.
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Many other observatories can't catch sight of this compound. It is far from interfering light sources that can mess up calculations about the amount of dust in the sky.
The choice of the target is important to the mystery. Wolf-Rayet stars may be big dust producers after interacting with companion stars.
Astronomers usually spot these stellar interactions through pinwheel patterns, created as the two stars collide and the winds blow off the surfaces of these stars. Wolf-Rayet stars are so bright that they overwhelm the emission of nearby dust.
This will be the first time that people will be able to see in the far side of the body. The Hubble Space Telescope has a lower resolution than the one observed from space.
The spectrum of elements in dust clouds can be provided by the long IR wavelength of light. It is possible that some of these chemicals are important to the building blocks of life.
Ryan Lau, a fellow at the Japan Aeronautical Exploration Agency (JAXA), said in a 2020 statement (opens in new tab) that they want to study the dust and its chemical composition by looking at the wavelength of light that is visible in the mid-IR range.
Lau's team will look at two Wolf-Rayet systems using two instruments on the same computer.
To make sure the observations are working as expected, the baseline will be the star system ofWR 140. The two stars will approach each other closely early in the mission in a potential dust generating event.
During the first five months of the telescope's normal operations, Lau's investigation will be one of many early release science observations. Beyond serving as an investigation into our dusty origin story, the Wolf-Rayet observations will also help determine the difference between the bright and faint objects it can see.
Mansi Kasliwal, an astronomer at the California Institute of Technology, says that learning the range will be useful in many ways in the future.
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