2023-05-21 09:33:02
Andrés Jordán, director of the Millennium Institute of Astrophysics, academic at the Adolfo Ibáñez University and senior researcher at Data Observatory, academics Bing Yang and Manuel Aravena from the UDP Institute of Astrophysics Studies, together with doctoral student Manuel Solimano and postdoctoral researcher Jorge González -López from the institution, lead initiatives that obtained access to the advanced space telescope.
In just the second cycle of allocating observation times at the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) – the most modern to date, launched into space in December 2021 – only four projects led by astronomers working in institutions nationals were selected to have access to hours of observation in this important instrument. This is the first time that initiatives led from Chile obtain it.
One of them is headed by the director of MAS, an academic from the Faculty of Engineering and Sciences of the Adolfo Ibáñez University, Andrés Jordán, while the other three are led by members of the Institute of Astrophysics Studies of the Diego Portales University (IEA UDP). : These are initiatives led by the academic Bing Yang, the postdoctoral researcher Jorge González-López (together with Professor Manuel Aravena) and the doctoral student Manuel Solimano.
In the case of Jordán, who is also a senior researcher at the Data Observatory, the project seeks to study giant planets in low-mass stars, worlds that according to current models should not form in these small stars. As the astronomer explains, through the project called “Problem Planets: Understanding the Formation of Giant Planets around Low Mass Stars” (“Problem planets: understanding the formation of giant planets around low-mass stars”) seek to “take spectra from the atmospheres of two of these planets to try to understand the mechanisms by which these worlds manage to form and shed light on which of the current model assumptions are not correct. To do this, we will use an instrument called NIRSPEC from the JWST in its PRISM mode, with which we hope to obtain the spectrum of the atmosphere of our transmitting targets, in other words, to observe how the opacity of the planetary atmosphere changes as a function of wavelength. ”. The MAS-UAI astronomer, Rafael Brahm, also participates in this project.
On the other hand, the IEA UDP academic Bing Yang will lead a project entitled “Probing Water Ice in Distant Comets: Crystalline or Amorphous?”. With the help of the observations in the JWST, the initiative seeks to characterize the water ice in a series of comets, in order to better understand the role that this element plays in the formation of planetary systems.
Meanwhile, astronomer Manuel Solimano, a PhD student in Astrophysics at Diego Portales University, will lead an initiative entitled “The LAHst of Us: A Sub-kiloparsec View Into The Origins Of a Strongly-Lensed Lyman Alpha Halo at z=3” , which will explore the origins of the gas halos known as Lyman Alpha, for which the technology and capability of the JWST would allow for an unprecedented level of detail.
For their part, postdoctoral researcher Jorge González-López and academic Manuel Aravena lead a project entitled “Unveiling the interplay between the circumgalactic and interstellar media in a complex protocluster environment at z=4.5”, in which academic Roberto Assef will also participate, and the students Ana Posses and Manuel Solimano. The initiative seeks to take advantage of the characteristics of the JWST to study the interaction of ionized gas, the interstellar medium, and the stellar components necessary to understand feedback processes and galactic growth in distant galaxies. The data obtained will allow them to test galaxy formation scenarios, observe stellar population properties and other advances.
For the director of the IEA UDP, José Luis Prieto, who is also a young researcher at MAS, “the discoveries being made with JWST observations are furthering our knowledge in different areas of astrophysics. It is a tremendous achievement and a source of pride that PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and IEA scholars have obtained observation time with JWST.” The academic added that the time allocation process “is very competitive: approximately 14% of the submitted proposals obtained time. I am very expectant of the results of the observations that these programs will carry out with JWST.”
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