On Friday, NASA continued to build hype for next week’s Webb Space Telescope image release by announcing the five objects in the first cache of images. Several of the targets are exactly what you’d expect given the scientists said they want to use the telescope for imaging, while a couple were likely chosen because they’ll produce some fantastic visuals.
The list of goals also shows NASA’s thoughts on how it can get informative data as quickly as possible. We’ll give some background on each of the goals below.
WASP-96 b: One of Webb’s most exciting features is its ability to analyze the composition of exoplanet atmospheres. When a planet passes between its host star and Earth, some of the star’s light will pass through its atmosphere, allowing materials in the atmosphere to absorb specific wavelengths in the star’s light. This signal is small because only a small fraction of the star’s light will pass through the atmosphere, so it would usually take months of observations to get a good signal.
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WASP-96 b allows us to get a good signal much faster because it is a planet made up mostly of an atmosphere. Although it is about half the mass of Jupiter, it is physically larger, indicating that it is made mostly of gas. It also has an orbital period of just 3.4 days, which means we can image its atmosphere twice a week. NASA will show the infrared spectrum of light that has passed through the atmosphere and will undoubtedly highlight the spectral characteristics of the molecules in the planet’s atmosphere.
The Carina Nebula: This will likely be a “just for display” image. The Carina Nebula is a vast cloud of gas illuminated by the massive stars forming within it. It’s home to the brightest star we’ve identified in the Milky Way, as well as Eta Carina, my favorite “most likely to go supernova” candidate. The star came so close to self-destruction in a massive eruption about 175 years ago that it formed a nebula in the Carina Nebula.
This image will look spectacular. And there is potentially interesting science to be done here. Webb should have the resolution to make out smaller-scale structures in the nebula, and perhaps even determine the flow of gas in some regions based on changes in the spectrum caused by the redshift and blueshift. Finally, Webb may be able to detect some interesting molecules in the cooler regions of the nebula. But I suspect it will take some time to get rid of the awe-inspiring aspects of the image before anyone pays attention to the science.
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