Humanity’s view of the distant cosmos will never be the same.
The James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful to be placed in orbit, has revealed the clearest image to date of the early universe, going back 13 billion years, NASA said on Monday.
The stunning shot, released in a White House briefing by US President Joe Biden, is overflowing with thousands of galaxies and features some of the faintest objects observed, colorized in blue, orange and white tones.
Photo: AP
Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, it shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, which acts as a gravitational lens, bending light from more distant galaxies behind it toward the observatory, in a cosmic magnification effect.
Webb’s primary imager NIRCam — which operates in the near infrared wavelength spectrum because light from the early universe has been stretched out by the time it reaches us — has brought these faint background galaxies into focus.
Webb compiled the composite shot in 12.5 hours, achieving well beyond what its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, could in weeks.
“Fantastic — galaxies upon galaxies upon galaxies,” said Jonathan Lunine, chair of the astronomy department at Cornell University, rejoicing with the rest of the global astronomy community.
“Even though this is by no means the farthest Webb can see, it’s the deepest image ever taken, and shows the power of this remarkable telescope: tremendous sensitivity, a broad range of wavelengths and sharp image clarity,” he said.
Avi Loeb, a professor of astronomy at Harvard University, said the reddish arcs are the ancient galaxies, while the light colored circles and ellipses belong to the younger galaxy cluster in the foreground.
He added that he was “thrilled” about the idea of Webb looking even closer to the Big Bang, back some 13.8 billion years ago.
The next set of images were to be released yesterday, revealing details about the atmosphere of faraway planets, “stellar nurseries” where stars form, galaxies locked in a dance of close encounters, and the cloud of gas around a dying star.
Biden conveyed a sense of awe that Webb is documenting universe imagery from about 13 billion years ago.
“It’s hard to even fathom,” he said.
“These images are going to remind the world that America can do big things and remind the American people, especially our children, that there’s nothing beyond our capacity,” the president said.
Carina Nebula, a stellar nursery, is famous for its towering pillars that include “Mystic Mountain,” a three-light-year-tall cosmic pinnacle captured in an iconic image by Hubble.
Webb has also carried out a spectroscopy — an analysis of light that reveals detailed information — on a gas giant planet called WASP-96 b, which was discovered in 2014.
Nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, WASP-96 b is about half the mass of Jupiter and zips around its star in just 3.4 days.
Nestor Espinoza, a Space Telescope Science Institute astronomer, said that previous exoplanet spectroscopies carried out using existing instruments were very limited compared to what Webb could do.
“It’s like being in a room that is very dark and you only have a little pinhole you can look through,” he said of the prior technology. Now, with Webb, “you’ve opened a huge window, you can see all the little details,” he said.
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