Astronomy has entered a new era with these images that display the full capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope – to say these images are cool is a wild understatement.
The new James Webb Space Telescope is a joint project of the US, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) – with NASA in the lead.
Webb has been specially tuned to see the sky in the infrared, which is light at longer wavelengths that can be sensed by our eyes.
This will allow Webb to look deeper into the Universe than its predecessor (the Hubble telescope) and detect events occurring further than 13.5 billion years ago.
This new technology will also be used to study atmospheres of planets in our Milky Way Galaxy in search of the possibility of new life.
The telescope’s first full-colour images and spectroscopic data were released during a television broadcast on Tuesday 12 July.
These images represent the first wave of full-colour scientific images and spectra that have been gathered and the official beginning of Webb’s general science operations.
Scroll down to view these first images from the world’s largest and most powerful space telescope which demonstrate Webb as its full power.
Webb’s predecessor, the Hubble telescope would often target the Carina Nebular but we’ve now got a very different looking shot. Carina is one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky which is roughly located 7,600 light-years from Earth. They are massive clouds of gas and dust in which new stars are forming. In this new Webb image, we can’t only see the stars but also all the gas and dust which is now clear to see. One of Webb’s scientific goals is to study how stars form, and Carina is an ideal place to do that.
Stephan’s Quintet is located in the constellation Pegasus, which is about 290 million light-years away. It’s credited for being the first compact galaxy group ever discovered. This image captured by Webb looks similar to the Hubble version but the new telescope’s infrared sensitivity helps pull out different features for astronomers to study.
The Southern Ring, or “Eight-Burst” nebular, is a giant expanding sphere of gas and dust that’s been lit up by a dying star in the centre – which sounds pretty cool. The Southern Ring is nearly half a light-year in diameter and is located about 2,000 light-years from Earth. Just as Webb wants to see how stars are born, it wants to also see how they die.
Instead of a aesthetically pleasing picture, this is a spectrum as half of what Webb will do is spectroscopy. This involves splitting light into its component “colours” to reveal something about a target’s properties – what it’s made of, how fast it’s moving, how hot it is, etc. This is a spectrum which will be used for the atmosphere of WASP-96b, a giant planet outside our Solar System, approximately 1,150 light-years from Earth. WASP-96b is not the right kind of planet to host life as it’s too hot. Webb will be searching for planets that have atmospheres similar to Earth and asking themselves if they can be habitable?
SMACS 0723 is a huge cluster of galaxies which is known to astronomers as a “gravitational lens” because the mass of the cluster bends and magnifies the light of objects that are much further away. Every red arc-like structure you can see in the image is something, most likely a galaxy – way off in the distance and further back in time. The light in some of those arcs has taken over 13 billion years to reach us.
Not only will the new James Webb Space Telescope be used to unfold the infrared universe but it could also finally be the answer to THAT question millions of us ask ourselves every day – are we alone out there or not?
For more up to date news plus the best discounts and sales – visit The Hoxton Trend.
