2023-07-08 22:54:50
1.5 million kilometers from our home, Earth, is one of the most relevant witnesses to the universe for the scientific community: the James Webb Space Telescope, made up of 18 hexagonal segments and a diameter of 6.5 meters.
The anniversary of the first images delivered by this telescope will soon be fulfilled and that is why experts, who have followed its work, take stock of what it has achieved in this time, which began counting from July 11, 2022, when the president of the United States, Joe Biden, went ahead one day to show the first revealed image and be part of that historic moment.
On that day, Biden released a galaxy cluster known as SMACS 0723 to the world, calling it the deepest, sharpest image of the universe ever. The other day, the other images were published. They were the Carina Nebula located 7,600 years from Earth, the Southern Ring Nebula at 2,000 years, Stephan’s Quintet—five galaxies in the constellation Pegasus—and the spectrum of the planet Wasp-96b that revealed unmistakable signs of water and evidence of haze and clouds.
“With his first detection of water in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, Webb will now set out to study hundreds of other systems to understand what other planetary atmospheres are made of,” wrote the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) in those days. .
Precisely, Jorge Zuluaga, astrophysicist and popularizer from Medellín, explained that during this year his work with exoplanets has been exceptional: “The telescope has been our nose with which we can smell the atmospheres of exoplanets and has managed to capture some of them, a feat that has been difficult,” he said.
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It’s no surprise then that his data-packed images—and some visually appealing—circulate the world for their versatility, color, detail, and range, penetrating even previously unexplored areas.
“The data revealed by the telescope during the year have achieved an impressive scientific production. A year ago I said that the first images were 1% of what this telescope would be and I still think that we are at the tip of the iceberg of everything it can achieve, taking into account that it will last at least 10 years in space. There has been talk of the possibility that he is even observing the universe for 20 years.
amazing job
In just one year, the Webb has captured the four gas giants of the Solar System. It has images of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune in infrared and visible spectra.
“The James Webb is characterized by its versatility in portraying the planets in different spectrums of light. This means that researchers can understand more about the properties of each celestial body such as composition, temperature, and its movement. You can also compare and differentiate their details”, explained astrophysicist Lauren Flor.
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A recent image, released on June 25 of this year, is of the bright rings of Saturn and its moons Dione, Enceladus and Tethys taken by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam).
What is new about this image is that Saturn appears dark from methane gas absorbing sunlight falling into the atmosphere, thus highlighting the ring system made up of rocky and icy fragments with some previously unseen detail.
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Other images such as those of Jupiter, published in August of last year, showed the giant storms, their winds and auroras that will give more clues about the internal life of the planet. Even at the time of her, Imke de Pater, professor emeritus at the University of California, confessed: “To be honest, we did not expect it to be so good.”
In April this year, the telescope also imaged the planet Uranus showing 11 of the planet’s 13 bright rings.
More relevant data
Although the images of the planets are usually the most attractive to people, there are more images and data with amazing revelations.
Astrophysicist Zuluaga noted that the Webb captured the galaxy Jades-GS-z13-o, also known as the most distant galaxy in the universe, just 325 million years after the Big Bang.
This is part of the Jades program, a project aimed at discovering and characterizing distant and faint galaxies with support from James Webb.
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So far, 717 galaxies in the infrared spectrum have been discovered from when the universe was just 600 million years old: “If the entire history of the universe were a two-hour movie, then these galaxies allow us to see, for the first time, scenes from the first two to five minutes”, they reported in the American magazine Sky and Telescope, specialized in astronomy. That is, Webb has delivered images of a young universe that was just in the making.
His work continues. Taking stock of what it has been up to now, scientists like Jorge Zuluaga and Lauren Flor hope that in the next decade the telescope will continue to provide data on the atmosphere of planets, distant galaxies, the birth of stars, and planetary systems.
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