- Jonathan Amos
- BBC science correspondent
A cosmic dance of five galaxies observed by the James Webb Space Telescope
A “star incubator” and a “cosmic dance” – two of the amazing images captured by NASA’s $10 billion James Webb Telescope.
NASA presented the images to the world, to demonstrate the telescope’s readiness to start scientific projects.
The James Webb Space Telescope has been in the testing and experimental phase for six months since its launch.
Webb is seen as the successor to the famous Hubble telescope. It is expected to represent a leap in exploration in at least twenty years.
The Webb Telescope is a joint project of the US, European and Canadian space agencies – led by NASA.
The Webb telescope is directed to observe the sky in the infrared spectrum – light that lies at distances unattainable by the naked eye.
This will enable the Webb telescope to probe the depths of the universe to a greater extent than the previous Hubble telescope could. And then to stand on events that occurred in ancient times – about 13.5 billion years ago.
Astronomers are relying on the capabilities of the modern technical Webb telescope to study the atmospheres of planets belonging to the Milky Way, in the hope of revealing traces of life.
This batch of images is the first drop of an upcoming rain, according to British researcher Gillian Wright, who says, “Whenever you look at the sky in a new way, you see things you didn’t expect to see.”
“The fact that this new information is promising, that it is of high quality, and that the telescope spotted it within a few hours – that fact simply says there are more discoveries waiting to be announced,” Wright, who is director of the UK’s Center for Space Technology, told the BBC. .
The Carina Nebula (cloud base)
picture released, NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI
The Carina Nebula was a classic target for the Hubble telescope – the predecessor of Webb – but with the latest telescope we came to a very different conclusion.
The Carina cloud is one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky. The Carina Nebula is located 7,600 light-years away from Earth.
The nebula, as astronomers know, is a nursery for stars that appear as huge clouds of gas and dust in which new stars are formed.
In other than this image, which was monitored by the Webb telescope, we cannot see the stars. And not only that; We even see clouds of gas and dust.
Here, astronomers refer to what can be described as barriers of cosmic hills separating dust in the lower half and gas in the upper half.
One of the goals of the Webb Telescope is to study how stars are formed. The Carina Nebula is an ideal place to achieve this goal.
SMEX 0723
Light from galaxies takes billions of years to reach us
SMAX 0723 is an enormous constellation of galaxies. Astronomers describe them as “attracting lenses”, because they collect and amplify the light emitted by distant objects.
In every direction an arc-like formation can be seen – and this formation or arc is in fact a galaxy far, far away, both in space and time. yes; Light from some of those arcs takes more than 13 billion years to reach us.
And there’s something a little weird here – some of those arcs scattered on either side of the image are actually the same objects except that their light is being attracted by the SMAX 0723 lens from more than one direction.
The Southern Ring Nebula (Eight Bursts)
picture released, NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI
Other images of this nebula were taken by the Hubble telescope.
The Southern Ring Nebula, or the Eight Bangs Nebula, is a giant, sprawling envelope of gas and dust from the ancient burning of a star that is now extinguished at the core of this nebula.
As stars age, they change the way they produce energy and shed their outermost shells. But as soon as the heat returns to the core of the star, it supplies energy to all those envelopes that it has previously spewed.
The Southern Ring Nebula is about half a light-year in diameter. The nebula is located at a distance of about 2,000 light-years from Earth.
This type of celestial body is called a “planetary nebula”, although in fact, it has nothing to do with planets, but was given this name by mistake, during the early eras of telescopes, which did not have the observing ability that their counterparts enjoy today.
Just as the people behind the Webb telescope want to know how stars are born, they also want to know how they die.
Stefan’s quintet
There, at a distance of 290 million light-years, lies Stefan’s Quintet in the northern sky, where a constellation of five galaxies is known as the Winged Horse.
Stefan’s Quintet was the first galaxies ever to be discovered. Of these five galaxies, four take a repeated dancing motion in a narrow closed orbit.
At first glance, this image taken by the Webb Telescope does not look different from an earlier image taken by the Hubble Telescope, but the sensitivity of the new image, taken in infrared light, highlights new features for astronomers.
And that was the hope: that the James Webb Telescope would complement its predecessor, the Hubble; Each has its strengths, and the contrast between the images they take will benefit researchers in their astronomical studies.
We do not know how long scientists will continue to use the 32-year-old Hubble telescope, which is beginning to suffer from technical problems. But NASA officials for Hubble had a budget plan for him that was no more than five years old. However, we must not lose hope.
picture released, NASA/ESA/CSA/STSCI
This is not just a pretty picture. It’s cute. Half of what the Webb telescope does is to do spectroscopic microscopy studies.
This includes breaking up light into its structural elements of ‘colour’, in order to reveal things about the properties of the target object – what is it made of? And how fast does it move? And what is its temperature? and so on.
What is in this image is a spectrum taken by the Webb Atmosphere Telescope of a giant planet called “WASP-96b” located outside our solar system at a distance of about 1,150 light-years from planet Earth.
Wasp-96b looks a bit like Jupiter; With its large gas envelope.
The James Webb Telescope has the ability to distinguish particles in the atmosphere with amazing accuracy. The picture clearly shows signs of water vapor.
Wasp-96b is not considered a habitable planet; It is very close to the star that follows its constellation, and therefore it is very hot.
But the Webb telescope will aim at planets with Earth-like atmospheres. And then we wonder about the possibility of human habitation of those planets.