Experts from India to get a piece of NASA's James Webb telescope; read what they'll study

Two lucky astronomers from India will get a chance to use the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and contribute to the cosmic discoveries awaiting us. According to The Weather Channel, these astronomers are Dr. Jessy Jose, an astrophysicist from the Tirupati-based Indian Institute of Science Education and Research and Dr. Manoj Puravankara from the Mumbai-based Tata Institute of Fundamental Research's Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics.

The duo has been selected through NASA's JWST Guaranteed Time Observations (GTO) programme, which promises 16% use of the observatory over its first 3 cycles of operation. 

What would the duo use the James Webb telescope for?

The two astronomers will utilise their previous time as co-investigators of the JWST GO Cycle-I studies which would last for a total of 7,900 hours. During the first cycle, Dr Purvankara will study five protostars, meaning stars in their early stage which have masses one-tenth to twelve times that of the Sun, under the leadership of Principal Investigator Tom Megeath. 

Dr Puravankara and his team have been allocated a total of 66.4 hours over 12 months wherein they would observe the young stars using two of Webb's instruments-- the near-infrared spectrograph (NIRSpec) and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The NIRSpec has a primary objective of analysing the spectrum of an object to determine its physical properties, including temperature, mass, and chemical composition.

The second instrument MIRI will enable astronomers to see the redshifted light of distant galaxies, newly forming stars, and faintly visible comets as well as objects in the Kuiper Belt.

Dr Jose, on the other hand, will study the Galactic Centre Cloud (GCC), a location considered the "cradle of many stars in the universe". She is a member of an international team that is being led by European Space Agency (ESA) scientist Steven Longmore and has been allotted an observational time of 27.3 hours over a period of one year. Dr Jose's team chose the GCC for examination because it believes that studying a region that formed at a time of “optimum” gas density, temperature and pressure conditions could reveal more about star formation and their evolution.