The way that humanity perceives the vast cosmos will never be the same. The James Webb Space Telescope, the most potent telescope ever launched into orbit, has produced the most distinct image of the early cosmos, dating back 13 billion years, according to a report released on Monday by the US space agency NASA.
President Joe Biden unveiled the breathtaking image during a White House briefing. It is filled with thousands of galaxies and includes some of the weakest objects ever seen.
Webb’s First Deep Field is an image of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 that functions as a gravitational lens to bend light from farther away galaxies towards the observatory in an effect known as cosmic magnification.
These inconspicuous background galaxies have been brought into sharp focus by Webb’s primary imager NIRCam, which operates in the near infrared wavelength range because light from the early cosmos has been stretched out by the time it reaches us.
Webb completed the composite image in 12.5 hours, a feat that took the Hubble Space Telescope weeks to complete.
Jonathan Lunine, Cornell University’s astronomy department chair, expressed his excitement to AFP by saying, “Fantastic — galaxies upon galaxies upon galaxies,” joining the rest of the world’s astronomers in their jubilation.
Even though this isn’t the furthest Webb can observe, it is the deepest image ever acquired, demonstrating the capability of this amazing telescope with its high sensitivity, wide wavelength range, and clear, sharp images.
Harvard astronomy professor Avi Loeb explains that the light-colored circles and ellipses are part of the younger galaxy cluster in the foreground, while the reddish arcs are older galaxies.
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He said that he was “thrilled” about the prospect of Webb exploring the Big Bang, which occurred roughly 13.8 billion years ago.
Stellar nursery
The following batch of photographs, which include information on the atmospheres of distant planets, “stellar nurseries” where stars form, galaxies engaged in a dance of close encounters, and the gaseous halo surrounding a dying star, will be made public on Tuesday.
Biden expressed wonder that Webb is recording images of the cosmos from almost 13 billion years ago.
The president remarked that it was difficult to even imagine.
“These images will serve as a constant reminder to the American people, especially our youngsters, that nothing is beyond their power and that America is capable of great things.”
The three-light-year-tall “Mystic Mountain,” a celestial pinnacle that Hubble famously captured in a photograph, is one of the towering pillars in the star nursery known as the Carina Nebula.
On a gas giant planet dubbed WASP-96 b, which was found in 2014, Webb has also performed spectroscopy, an analysis of light that exposes specific details.
WASP-96 b is almost half the mass of Jupiter and travels in about 3.4 days around its star while being nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth.
A STSI astronomer named Nestor Espinoza told AFP that Webb’s capabilities much outweighed those of earlier exoplanet spectroscopies performed with existing equipment.
He described the earlier equipment as being “like being in an extremely dark chamber with only a small slit you can peek through.” Webb has now “opened a large window, you can see all the minute nuances,” as he said.
Million miles from Earth
In a region of space known as the second Lagrange point, Webb, which was launched in December from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket, is orbiting the Sun at a distance of one million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth.
Here, it maintains a constant position in relation to the Earth and Sun and uses little fuel to modify its route.
The project’s estimated $10 billion overall cost makes it one of the most costly scientific platforms ever built, on par with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. It is a marvel of engineering.
The main mirror at Webb is almost 21 feet (6.5 meters) wide and is composed of 18 segments of mirror with gold coating. To get the greatest photos, the construction needs to be as sturdy as possible, much like a camera held in one’s hand.
It wobbles no more than 17 millionths of a millimeter, according to Charlie Atkinson, head engineer on the James Webb Space Telescope mission at major contractor Northrop Grumman, who spoke to AFP.
Following the first photographs, astronomers from all around the world will receive time on the telescope in shares, with projects chosen through a competitive process where applicants and selectors don’t know each other’s identities to reduce prejudice.
In order to answer fundamental questions about the cosmos, Webb operates in tandem with the Hubble and Spitzer space observatories, and NASA predicts that it has enough fuel for a 20-year life.