Free Astronomy Magazine January-February 2025

JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2025 The Sombrero galaxy is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. Stunning images like this, and an array of discoveries in the study of exoplanets, galaxies through time, star formation, and our own Solar System, are still just the beginning. Recently, scientists from all over the world converged— virtually—to apply for observation time with Webb during its fourth year of science operations, which begins in July 2025. General Observer time with Webb is more competitive than ever. A record-breaking 2377 proposals were submitted by the 15 October 2024 deadline, requesting about 78,000 hours of observation time. This is an oversubscription rate, the ratio defining the observation hours requested versus the actual time available in one year of Webb’s op- erations, of around 9 to 1. The pro- posals cover a wide array of science topics, with distant galaxies being among the most requested observa- tion time, followed by exoplanet at- mospheres, stars and stellar popu- lation, then exoplanet systems. ! T his image compares the view of the famous Sombrero galaxy in mid-infrared light (top) and visible light (bot- tom). The James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) reveals the smooth inner disk of the galaxy, while the Hubble Space Telescope’s visible light image shows the large and extended glow of the central bulge of stars. Both the Webb and Hubble images resolve the clumpy nature of the dust that makes up the Sombrero galaxy’s outer ring. [NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)]