NASA is preparing to show what the James Webb Space Telescope is capable of when the space agency releases the first color images from the observatory before it begins scientific operations unraveling the mysteries of the universe.
After started on Christmas morning, the telescope’s 6.5-meter mirror opened and its tennis-court-sized sun shield unfolded into space. The telescope is already positioned around 1 million miles from Earth and after commissioning is ready to begin scientific observations in a decades-long process.
NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency plan to release the first full-color images and spectroscopic data from the James Webb Space Telescope on Tuesday, July 12, at 10:30 a.m. ET. The unveiling will be streamed live online at NASA.gov and on the agency’s social media platforms.
Consider this a friendly warning that those carefully planned space images will be everywhere on Tuesday.
Webb’s imaging team has already shared snippets of Webb’s capabilities, indicating that the upcoming images will be something to talk about.
The James Webb Space Telescope is now located about 1 million miles from Earth and is ready to begin scientific observations that have been decades in the making since commissioning. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
In April, the space agency and its telescope partners released the first image taken after the “fine phasing” alignment of the optical telescope element was completed.
Webb’s team did not choose the star, called 2MASS J17554042+655127, for any scientific reason, explained NASA operations scientist Webb Jane Rigby. Still, even though the star was a hundred times fainter than the light the human eye could see, it was blindingly bright for Webb and a testament to the telescope’s sensitivity.
Then, in May, the Webb science team shared an image of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, used to test the telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI. The image below shows the same view taken by the now-retired Infrared Array Camera on NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and then by Webb’s MIRI.
After started on Christmas morningThe telescope’s 20-foot (6.5-meter) mirror opened and its tennis-court-sized sun shield unfolded into space.
“Spitzer has taught us a lot, but it’s like a whole new world, just incredibly beautiful,” Webb Near Infrared Camera principal investigator Marcia Riecke said in May.
Before the big reveal, NASA released a list of space targets for Webb’s first images. According to the space agency, the sites were selected by an international committee with representatives from NASA, ESA, CSA and the Space Telescope Science Institute.
The first color images from the James Webb Space Telescope include the largest and brightest nebulae in the Universe, the Carina Nebula, located 7,600 light-years away, and WASP-96 b, a gas exoplanet about 1,150 light-years from Earth. The Southern Ring Nebula, an expanding cloud of gas surrounding a dying star, will also be featured in the first release of JWST data. Finally, the compact galaxy group Stephan’s Quintet, located in the constellation Pegasus, and a galaxy cluster known as SMACX 0723 will test the observatory’s deep-field viewing capabilities.
The James Webb Space Telescope imaging team shared snippets of Webb’s capabilities, indicating that the upcoming images will be something to talk about. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
JWST mission managers say the telescope has enough fuel to continue operating for several decades because of its precise launch trajectory. Its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, continues to operate after more than 30 years in orbit about 300 miles above Earth. NASA astronauts conducted several spacewalks to repair a defect in Hubble’s primary mirror after the first images came back blurry.
The James Webb Space Telescope observatory is about 1 million miles from Earth, meaning a repair mission would be out of the question. Fortunately, Webb’s first images came back crystal clear.
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