The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has now extended humanity’s vision further in time and space than ever before, providing a breathtaking glimpse of the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the early universe yet.
Now, NASA has just revealed five more stunning full-color images captured by the most ambitious telescopes ever built by mankind.
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” teased Gregory L. Robinson, program director of the James Webb Space Telescope, on the eve of the unveiling.
And boy was he right!
The images are, of course, colorized during processing, so while they may not be accurate to the naked eye, they still represent real data and make it easier for scientists to distinguish and understand the complex structures being imaged. These improvements are for science only.
Amazingly, what we see here is just five days of images from the telescope!! They are the culmination of decades of hard work by many people around the world, and this is just the beginning. So, enjoy these incredible visions that are clearer and more detailed than ever before.
The Southern Ring Nebula
What you can see below are spectacular waves of death from the Southern Ring Nebula – envelopes of gas that are shed by dying stars.
The Southern Ring Nebula, also known as NGC 3132, is about 2,000 light-years away and is a magnificent, glowing spot in the southern constellation Vela.
At its center are two stars, clearly visible in the image on the right below. The fainter is a white dwarf; the collapsed core of a dead star that was up to eight times the mass of the Sun during its lifetime. It reached the end of its life, blew off its outer layers, and the core collapsed into an ultradense object: up to 1.4 times the mass of the Sun, packed into an object the size of Earth. Although it still glows, it is simply from residual heat. Over billions of years it will cool to a dark, dead object.
For the first time, JWST was able to reveal this dust-covered star. The brighter star is in an earlier stage of its evolution and will one day explode into its own nebula.
(NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI)
At left, the Webb Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) reveals bubbly orange hydrogen from newly formed expansions, as well as a blue haze of hot ionized gas from the remnant heated core of the dead star.
At right, in the image taken by the Webb Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), the blue hydrocarbons form similar patterns to the orange ones in the previous image because they collect on the surface of rings of hydrogen dust.
“The web will allow astronomers to go into much more detail about planetary nebulae like this one,” explains NASA. “Understanding which molecules are present and where they are in the shells of gas and dust will help researchers advance their knowledge of these objects.”
To provide context for the new level of detail, here’s Hubble’s view of the Southern Ring Nebula taken in 1998.
(Hubble)
Read more about the image of the Southern Ring Nebula.
The deep field image
We’ve already seen the deep image of SMACS 0723, filled to the brim with galaxies frozen in time billions of years ago. Today, Webb’s team provided a little more information about the image.
Why do some of the galaxies in this image look bent? The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a “gravitational lens”, bending light rays from more distant galaxies behind it, magnifying them. Light from the most distant galaxy here has traveled 13.1 billion years to us. pic.twitter.com/XaZkngQqvg
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) July 12, 2022
Read more about Deep Field imaging.
Exoplanet WASP-96b
One of JWST’s targets was the exoplanet WASP-96b, a hot fluffy world that is so close to its star that it has an orbit of only 3.5 Earth days. It orbits a Sun-like star 1,150 light-years away.
WASP-96b has a mass less than half that of Jupiter and a diameter 1.2 times larger, so it’s much fluffier than any gas giant we have in our solar system – and much hotter , with a temperature higher than 1000 degrees Fahrenheit (538 degrees Celsius).
Fascinatingly, JWST was able to detect evidence of clouds and haze in the exoplanet’s atmosphere, picking up the “distinct signature of water.”
(NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI)
By observing small decreases in the brightness of specific colors of light over a period of 6.4 hours on June 21, JWST was able to reveal the presence of specific gas molecules around the planet. This is the most detailed observation of an exoplanet’s atmosphere we have ever obtained.
How it works? When an exoplanet passes between us and its host star – what’s known as a transit – a small, very small amount of the star’s light must pass through the star’s atmosphere, if any. Scientists can look at the spectrum of this light to look for brighter or dimmer wavelengths of light that have been absorbed and re-emitted by elements in the atmosphere. This can tell us what those elements are.
Interestingly, previous observations have shown that WASP-96b has a clean atmosphere, without clouds. So we still have a lot to learn about this strange exoplanet.
This isn’t the first time we’ve detected water in an exoplanet’s atmosphere – the Hubble Space Telescope did so in 2013 – but Webb’s detection is faster and much more detailed, and only hints at the potential of what lies ahead for our understanding alien worlds.
Read more about the WASP-96b observations.
Stefan’s Quintet
The Stefan Quintet is a group of galaxies locked in a cosmic dance of collisions and starbursts (the red areas of the image below).
The new JWST image of the Stefan Quintet is monstrously massive, covering an area of the sky one-fifth the diameter of the Moon (as seen from Earth) and containing more than 150 million pixels. It is made up of around 1,000 image files – and helps us understand how these dramatic galactic interactions shape the evolution of the galaxy.
(NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI)
In the uppermost galaxy in this image, NGC 7319, scientists identified signs of material swirling around a massive black hole. The light energy it emits from all the material it absorbs is 40 billion times that of our Sun.
While five galaxies are visible, only four of them are actually close together – the one on the left, NGC 7320, is much closer to us at 40 million light-years, while the others are about 290 million light-years away.
You can compare the JWST image with the 2009 Hubble view.
Webb’s mosaic is his largest image to date, covering an area of the sky 1/5 the diameter of the Moon (as seen from Earth). It contains more than 150 million pixels and is built from about 1000 image files. Compare the new image to the 2009 @NASAHubble view shown here! pic.twitter.com/SbulK1GIjN
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) July 12, 2022
Read more about the image here.
The Carina Nebula
Last, but by no means least, is the beautiful Carina Nebula as we’ve never seen it before – full of hundreds of brand new stars. This amazing image shows the edge of a nearby young star-forming region, also called NGC 3324.
The stunning detail in the infrared JWST image provides an incredible sense of depth and texture, and there are many mysterious new structures to explore.
(NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI)
Known as the ‘Space Rocks’, the highest peak in this image is an astonishing 7 light-years high, with blue ionized gas blasted from it by intense radiation.
The top is where newborn stars burst into life, and the stellar wind they produce pushes out the orange-y gases, which in turn also ignites new stars or can extinguish them before they’re ever formed.
What’s even more amazing is that we are all made up of the same stellar stuff that we can see in this image.
Read more about the Carina Nebula image.
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