In its first two months of activity, the space telescope revolutionizes our image of the universe
The instrument manages to spot stars, galaxies and celestial formations never seen
In his first months observing the cosmos, the james webb space telescope has not seen ships on fire beyond Orion, but it did manage to capture things that we humans would never have believed. And unlike what he said Roy Battythe iconic Blade Runner replicant, the images captured by the Webb They won’t be lost like tears in the rain. As the scientific community enthusiastically recounts, the destiny of these “galactic postcards” is to transform our vision of the universe. Beginning this Monday, September 19, Webb is committed to delivering at least one spatial image every two weeks.
Just over two months ago, the July 12the largest and most sophisticated space telescope ever released by our species presented the first battery of images that he had captured from our cosmos. On that day, Webb showed off the spectacular birth of stars in the Carina Nebula, a quintet of galaxies colliding with one another, a dying star surrounded by a sea of stars, and the deepest, sharpest infrared image ever captured of the distant universe.
Since then, the space observatory has not stopped giving news. Webb has detected for the first time the presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, has made an ‘infrared portrait’ of Jupiter’s auroras and has achieved the more complete chemical portrait to date from a distant planet. The cameras on board have also obtained spectacular images of the galaxy of the Cart-wheelfrom tarantula nebula and the famous orion nebulaone of the brightest formations that exist.
It is not the first time that a space mission has focused on these corners of the universe. The iconic Hubble telescope, released over 32 years ago, had already looked at, analyzed and photographed many of these celestial objects that now monopolize covers. But it is only necessary to see the images captured by one and by the other to see that the difference between both telescopes is abysmal. Webb’s instruments are succeeding in looking at the universe with a unprecedented level of detail.
unexplored universe
Webb’s ‘photo’ of the Carina Nebula, unlike the one Hubble once captured, shows hundreds of stars, galaxies and cosmic dust clusters until now we didn’t even know they were there. Each of these elements, as explained by the scientific team in charge of this project, could lead to exciting new discoveries about our universe. “Somewhere, something amazing is waiting to be found,” he said. Bill NelsonNASA administrator, after the presentation of the first images from Webb.
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Just before takeoff, the Spanish astrophysicist Begoña Vila (Vigo, 1963) enthusiastically explained, in an interview with this newspaper, that “Webb will show us the universe as we have never seen it before”. “We will see things we had not seen before and what, until nowwe didn’t even know they were there. distant galaxies. Star formations through cosmic dust. Atmospheres of planets. Perhaps even some corner of our solar system that we did not know will surprise us,” predicted the scientist.
The scientific and technical team in charge of this state-of-the-art space telescope estimates that the useful life of this mission could reach 20 years. During this time, Webb will be carrying out an exhaustive list of tasks ruled, down to the smallest detail, by research groups from around the world. In the first year of its life, it is estimated that this instrument will spend around 25% of your time on exoplanet observation. If all goes according to plan, this mission will target dozens and dozens of celestial bodies to discover what is where, until now, we had not seen anything.