Washington, July 12 (BUS): A shimmering view of young stars. Blue and orange foamy view of a dying star. Five galaxies in a cosmic dance. The splendor of the universe glowed in a new set of images released Tuesday from NASA’s powerful new telescope.
The unveiling of the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope Monday at the White House begins with a peek at the first shot — a jumble of distant galaxies deeper into the universe than humanity has ever seen.
Tuesday’s releases showed parts of the universe seen by other telescopes. But Webb’s sheer power, location far from Earth, and use of the infrared light spectrum showed them in a new light, according to the AP.
With Webb, scientists hope to get a peek at the light from the first stars and galaxies that formed 13.7 billion years ago, just 100 million years away from the universe’s Big Bang. The telescope will also scan the atmospheres of space worlds for possible signs of life.
“Each image is a new discovery and each one will give humanity a view we’ve never seen before,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Tuesday.
Webb’s use of gentle infrared light, he said, allows the telescope to see cosmic dust and see far light from corners of the universe.
European and Canadian space agencies joined NASA in building the telescope, which was launched in December after years of delays and cost overruns. Webb is considered the successor to the highly successful, but outdated Hubble Space Telescope.
Tuesday shows:
– The Southern Ring Nebula, which is sometimes called the “Eight Explosion”. The images show a dying star with a foamy rim of escaping gas. It is about 2500 light years away. A light year is 5.8 trillion miles.
The Carina Nebula, one of the brightest stellar nurseries in the sky, is about 7,600 light-years away. One view was a stunning landscape of orange cliffs.
Stephan’s Quinet Five galaxies in a cosmic dance were first seen 225 years ago in the constellation Pegasus. It includes a black hole that scientists said showed matter “swallowed up by this kind of cosmic monster”. Cornell University astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger, who was not part of Webb’s team, said in an email that Webb “just gave us an unprecedented new 290-million-year-old view of what this quintet is doing.”
A giant planet called WASP-96b. It is the size of the planet Saturn and is 1150 light years away. A gas planet, not a candidate for life anywhere else but a prime target for astronomers.
Instead of an image, the telescope used its infrared detectors to examine the chemical composition of the planet’s atmosphere. He showed water vapor in the extremely hot planet’s atmosphere and found the chemical spectrum of neon.
The images were released one by one at an event at NASA’s Goddard Space Center that included fans with lights the color of the telescope’s gold mirrors.
The world’s largest and most powerful space telescope took off last December from French Guiana in South America. It reached the observation point 1 million miles (1.6 million km) from Earth in January.
Then the lengthy process of aligning the mirrors, and getting the infrared detectors cool enough to operate and calibrate the scientific instruments, began, all protected by a canopy the size of a tennis court.
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