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54 replies

I propose Urpeen and Urvag for Mars and Venus respectively (and respectfully)

4
WetAndFlummoxedreply
lemmy.world

Guessing it's a reference to Futurama where the professor says they renamed it to urectum.

36
JackGreenEarthreply
lemm.ee

Possible futurama reference, where they rename Uranus to Urectum.

8
lemm.ee

I got to say, this is a genuinely beautiful photo.

25
lemmy.ml

Is this in visible light or are there other spectrums involved? I m just wondering if this is real color.

20
nexguyreply
lemmy.world

I do not believe JWST has visual spectrum detectors

12
Plibbertreply
lemmy.ml

That's what I thought to. That's why I'm wondering what spectrum this is in, or of it's CGI/edit.

6

Hi, amateur citizen scientist here.

James Webb space telescope has 2 major imagery instruments, and a couple others for alignment and spectrography. All these instruments are in varying portions of the infrared spectrum.

When making an observation, JWST uses NIRCam, a near-infrared imager, to take a series of images. There are two identical sensors in NIRCam, which capture adjacent portions of the sky in both a short and a long IR channel. There are also two filter wheels that take the images with an array of slitless filters.

Many images also use MIRI, a mid-infrared instrument that generally produces slightly less dazzling (but still amazing) pictures, but very valuable scientific data that allows us to see the most redshifted galaxies. MIRI also has an array of 9 filters. This instrument allows JWST to see farther into the universe than ever before.

But this is only where observations begin. While terabytes of grayscale imagery and spectrographs are invaluable to scientific study, the public usually prefers more artistic presentations of humanity's collective efforts. The image is still authentic - nothing is "edited" or "photoshopped" in the traditional sense. But it takes hours of painstaking work to "shift" the images from infrared into visible light.

After the series of filtered grayscale images are colorized in a way that makes sense in visible light, they are still a series of separate images from monochrome IR filters. An analogy would be to take a long exposure picture with red, yellow, green, blue, purple, violet, and red filters. The images are then overlayed to create a composite, like what you see here. Sometimes MIRI images are added with low opacity to showcase the mid-IR whisps of "dust" in some nebulas (mostly glowing gasses and plasma), invisible to all previous telescopes.

All the raw data from JWST is available as soon as it's fully received and uploaded by NASA at the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes (MAST) run by the STScI, for both researchers and hobbyist like me. If you have a lot of storage space and some basic images processing skills (or are willing to spend an afternoon to learn), I highly recommend reading more about the process and trying it yourself.

[Edited to fix broken links.]

14
Plibbertreply

This is an awesome explanation, that's a really cool way to process an image. Thanks man, much appreciated.

3
Chemical Wonkareply
discuss.tchncs.de

In fact, Uranus is a pretty cold place its temperature is aroind 49ย K (โˆ’224ย ยฐC; โˆ’371ย ยฐF)

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thefartographerreply
lemm.ee

AROIND??? Is that expected to be found in Uranus, doctor???

5
Chemical Wonkareply
discuss.tchncs.de

Lol, My keyboard doesn't have a corrector and English is not my native language. This explains a lot

3
thefartographerreply
lemm.ee

What more could I expect from the Willy Wonka of chemicals? The methanol berries taste like *gags and dies*

3
FinishingDutchreply
lemmy.world

Good to know, Iโ€™ll bring a sweater when Iโ€™m exploring Uranus. Thanks ๐Ÿซถ

4

Hmmmm. Comment on the cool science bit or make an ass-related comment?

[OBLIGATORY COMMENT REGARDING MY ASSHOLE LOL]

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Can NASA let me know if that mole looks benign?

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I checked the comments to make sure they are all lame, low-effort ass jokes. Yep, all is right with the world.

13

I bet writing that title will be a defining moment in their career when they look back on it in retirement.

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Trump: "Yeah that's her with the 27 moons. I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful... I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything."

Bush: "Whatever you want."

Trump: "Zoom in on Uranus. You can do anything."

Bush: "Yeah those moons. All I can see is the moons."

Trump: "It looks good."

3