Questions tagged [infrared]
Questions about infrared astronomy, both observations (in the broadest sense) and instruments. The infrared part of the electromagnetic spectrum has a longer wavelength than visible light, but shorter than sub-mm or radio waves.
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What is the black gap layer in Jupiter's limb?
[Source: NASA/Webb]
On the rightmost edge of Jupiter, there is a black layer between the planet and the very top of its atmosphere.
Is this the day-night terminator effect, like when the clouds above ...
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Why does infrared pass through clouds of gas and dust with minimal extinction?
Why do we use Infrared to view through clouds of gas and dust in space? I understand that it is because it can pass through without being absorbed, but why is this? My thinking is that it is because ...
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Looking straight through the Milky Way Galaxy with the Gedanken Space Telescope from radio to 100 keV, what would the opacity vs wavelength look like?
Imagine that the "Large Gedanken Cryogenic Space Telescope" has been commissioned and aligned and is ready for its first test. It is equipped with a closed-cycle helium refrigerator to ...
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Can terrestrial infrared telescopes see through clouds or haze, sometimes at least?
My answer to Could UV-A imaging sensor reasonably see a total eclipse in progress through clouds? suggests that while clouds blocking visible light observation of the (partially) eclipsed solar disk ...
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Acetylene at Uranus? What's JWST's evidence and current thinking of how it's possible?
After about 03:22 in PBS Newshour's July 13, 2023 James Webb Space Telescope prompts scientists to rethink understanding of the universe JWST Interdisciplinary Scientist Heidi Hammel talks about ...
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Narrowband imaging wavelengths in NIR?
Lines giving useful (& beautiful) data in visible spectrum are well known - H-b, O-III, H-a, S-II. Unfortunately light pollution is strongest in visible light.
Are there similar relatively bright ...
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Did they ever figure out why Parker's WISPR cameras were able to see the surface of Venus? Mischaracterized filter, or unexpected atmospheric window?
Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL/Naval Research Laboratory/Guillermo Stenborg and Brendan Gallagher
Also refer to the technical material cited in the Space Exploration SE question
How brightly does ...
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What do negative values on bright sources in TIRSPEC mean?
I opened a FITs image data from TIRSPEC (NIR imaging) (an HgCdTe infrared imaging sensor) on DS9 and I saw that some of the bright stars have black patches at the center (negative values).
Can you ...
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What is the infrared self-luminosity value of Jupiter and Saturn?
I'm looking for these data to apply them to the Kelvin-Helmholtz mechanism but I can't find the values. Or at least if there is an order of magnitude compared to the solar luminosity.
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How to interpret illumination in "pulsar cannonball" image
This beautiful image (from APOD) looks like the trail of the ejected pulsar is illuminating a ball of gas and dust. My eye sees patches of light and shadow, but sometimes images can be deceptive. What ...
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Can we see atomic positronium lines in space? What could be learned from it and what are current challenges to doing so?
This answer to Have we detected spectra of exotic atoms in stars?1 currently ends:
Estimates for observing lines corresponding to transitions between different bound states of positronium are not ...
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Which (if any) space telescope would have worked longer if it hadn't simply run out of helium?
In this answer to Why is the hot part of Webb's MIRI cryocooler in the 300K area? and comments below discusses the helium refrigerator used for cooling JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument or MIRI.
A ...
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Why is infrared the ideal band to detect the earliest and most-redshifted galaxies? [duplicate]
Was infrared chosen for the James Webb Space Telescope's mission to detect the most-redshifted galaxies and stars in the universe because most detectable galactic radiation emits most strongly in the ...
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What are the bright dots in some galaxies in the first JWST image?
In the first image released by the James Webb Space Telescope, some galaxies seem to have many bright dots - what are these? Young, huge stars? Supernovae? Just hot things behind the galaxy?
(30 MB ...
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What does the celestial sphere look like in thermal IR?
The Space SE question JWST detector heat load asks
...what is the heat load from the collected radiation of the main mirrors on the detector, and how does that vary depending on what objects or ...
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What exactly is the risk to any JWST instrumentation when looking at objects that are "too bright"?
This answer by pela to question #48317 at one point states
The star should be bright, but probably not too bright (like Betelgeuse), since we don't want to burn MIRI off from the beginning
A comment ...
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How do JWST and Hubble compare in detecting small bodies in the solar system that are a) white, b) black, c) Arrokoth-like, d) Voyager-like?
Assume the object is small, spherical, and illuminated only by the Sun, and has some apparent motion. The object is either:
a) white - reflecting 100% perfectly diffusely (assume low temperature)
b) ...
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Question: By design, JWST cannot observe in the anti-sun direction. Is this due to Gegenschein backscatter?
This question has been reposted from Space Exploration
Gegenschein is a faint bright spot in the zodiacal light, centered at the antisolar point.
By ESO/Y. Beletsky - ESO, CC BY 4.0, https://commons....
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How can photoionization release photons? As in the coronal emission of a nova star?
The photoionization process absorbs energy (light), it doesn't release it....
So how can some astrophysicists say that photoionization releases the light responsible for the coronal emission of a star ...
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Is it possible for a planet to heat up its moon to habitable temperatures solely through infrared radiation?
Stars are powered by nuclear fusion and the energy released radiates through their surface as heat. But all objects radiate away some form of electromagnetic radiation depending on their temperature.
...
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How to calculate an infrared SED from the specific intensities?
I have values of total infrared fluxes (SED) in literature expressed in Jy (Jansky) for galaxies. I want to assure that my infrared radial profiles of the same galaxies in MJy/sr (and other in Jy/...
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How can a 1-pixel image of a rotating asteroid be used to measure its thermal inertia?
Phys.org's Observatory in Chile takes highest-resolution measurements of asteroid surface temperatures ever obtained from earth discusses imaging of millimeter wave imaging of the surface of asteroid ...
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How do the stars in the near-infrared (NIR) radiate?
Let's say we are studying the integrated near-infrared (NIR) light of a distant spiral galaxy. We would expect most of this light to be dominated by red giants stars and dwarfs. I assumed these stars ...
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What telescopes used 1000+ pixel Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) for multispectral, single photon counting (time + energy of photons)?
This excellent answer to What would “the next GAIA”-like instrument be like? Could it simply be a 3 to 5x scaled-up version of the same beautiful system? is worth a thorough read-through, but it and ...
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Is Sofia a radio telescope proper?
I usually think of SOFIA, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy as an infrared optical telescope:
SOFIA uses a 2.5 m (8.2 ft) reflector telescope, which has an oversized, 2.7 m (8.9 ft)...
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Are features in the CMB correlated with features in the SDSS map of the most distant galaxies?
This is a follow up to an earlier question to which @pela gave an excellent answer. Apparently the statistics of the length-scales of the CMB fluctuations are similar to those obtained from other ...
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Is there any correlation between the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and the distribution of distant galaxies?
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is remarkably isotropic but does exhibit a distinct dipolar Doppler shift and also much smaller but measurable fluctuations in intensity and polarization. ...
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Was GRAVITY built to look at one star?
GRAVITY (shown below) is a interferometric combiner of near infrared light from four very large telescopes called The Very Large Telescope in order to make careful astrometric measurements near the ...
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How to convert between AB and Vega magnitudes?
This might be a bit silly, but I'm really struggling with a conversion.
I have apparent AB magnitudes: $$m_{AB} = -2.5 \log_{10}(f_\nu [\mu Jy]) + 25$$ that I would like to convert to Vega magnitudes, ...
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Number of lenslets in wavefront sensor array
I have to do a short calculation, but, quite frankly, I have no idea how to even start...
Suppose you have a 10-m telescope (f/10) with an infrared camera that observes at 10 micrometer. The seeing is ...
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Is there an IRAM satellite that measures thermal radiation at 250 GHz, or was this a ground-based instrument?
The Nature Research Letter A Pluto-like radius and a high albedo for the dwarf planet Eris from an occultation (also here and here) says about half-way through:
We now reassess Eris’ surface ...
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Why is detecting brown dwarfs difficult?
Why is detecting brown dwarf stars tedious and not always successful? They emit light in the infrared region, and given that we're surrounded by state-of-the-art technology in space today, why haven't ...
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First Confirmed Visual Observation of Gravitational Lensing
Is it possible to identify the first direct observation of the gravitational lensing?
What object was lensed, and where did the energy detected fall on the electromagnetic spectrum?
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Can the WISE telescope detect black holes?
Black holes are hot, aren't they? With its infrared scan, could the WISE telescope also detect a black hole? The hypothetical planet beyond the Kuiper belt could actually be a primordial black hole. ...
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How much infrared radiation is emitted by a bow shock?
Has the amount of energy being emitted from R Hydrae's bow shock been studied?
If so, is there any information how much infrared radiation is emitted in any means of measurement?
If the infrared ...
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Are red dwarfs (M dwarfs) known to be strong infrared sources?
If so, why? Are they known to be surrounded by large amounts of dust? Do they typically flare?
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How far have stars been seen beyond the center of the Milky Way?
What lies near the center of the galaxy is of great interest and in recent times the motion of dozen(s) of stars at the center of our galaxy orbiting around Sgr A* have been measured in great detail. ...
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Where can I find a good solar irradiance chart for the infrared?
I'm trying to understand the results of the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter vs the Mars Express in terms of their abilities to find methane on the surface of Mars. The solution that I'm coming to is that it ...
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What determines the surface material of the ALMA and Spitzer telescope?
The transition between metal dish and mirror happens around hundreds of microns. For example, the shortest wavelength the ALMA(metal dish) can detect is about 0.3mm, while the longest wavelength the ...
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Why was helium hydride (HeH+) the universe's first molecule?
The abstract of the new Nature paper Astrophysical detection of the helium hydride ion HeH+ tell us that infrared spectroscopy from SOFIA detected
...rotational ground-state transition of HeH+ at a ...
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Why would the Chang'e-4 lander find lunar far side temp. "colder than scientists expected", when the LRO has already been taking thermal readings?
In January, the Chinese probe lander Chang'e-4 was was announced to have found temperatures dipping lower on the far side than expected ("Chinese rover finds lunar nights 'colder than expected'" by R. ...
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How is IR spectroscopy used to determine the composition of asteroids?
I am trying to understand how spectrometers or spectroscopy can be used to calculate the surface composition of asteroids for the purposes of asteroid mining.
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Can a telescope detect a blackbody?
I'd like to determine the distance at which a telescope with a certain set of parameters (sensitivity, collector area) can detect a blackbody with certain other parameters (temperature, emitting area)....
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What's that limit, where we start to see infrared galaxies?
All the nearby galaxies we see come in visible range, many are visible from ground based telescopes. And the farthest galaxy that hubble discovered recently, 13.4 billion light years away is in infra ...
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What are IRAS sources?
Do IRAS sources refer to star forming regions? I searched google and I came to know that it stands for IR astronomical satellite.But what do they search for? Please help me
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Which kind of strategy should we take to discover Planet 9 and other KBOs?
What are the differences between the discoveries of Sedna, 2012vp 113, and the supposed Planet 9?
All need deep infrared surveys at the ecliptic plane, but P9 needs a much deeper survey?
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V471 Tauri's circumbinary brown dwarf non-observation; Applegate, or over-restrictive assumptions?
tl;dr Has the brown dwarf observation been disproven?
I have just started reading about the interesting object V471 Tauri. The first two sentences of the introduction to The V471 Tauri System: A ...
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Why is the "green" comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy) red in this picture?
In this nice NYTimes 'survey article' "Our Vast Solar System
and Its Many Explorers" there is a NEOWISE image of Comet C/2014 Q2 (Lovejoy). See here also.
The NASA description of the image says:
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What is the projected range of the JWST to be able to detect exoplanet atmospheres?
Yesterday the K2 mission detected transit events of objects passing in front of a number of M dwarfs which could turn out to be rocky planets. If some of these planets host atmospheres, could the JWST ...
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Why aren't ground-based observatories using adaptive optics for visible wavelengths (circa 2016)?
Adaptive Optics (AO) techniques allow ground based observatories to dramatically improve resolution by actively compensating for the effects of Astronomical Seeing.
The atmospheric effects are quite ...
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