This week will see the exciting release of the first science images from the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope, a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), was launched last December and has since arrived in orbit around the sun, deployed its hardware and adjusted its mirrors and instruments. Now NASA is preparing to release the first images from the telescope, set for July 12, and has announced which objects will show the images.
The first object is the Carina Nebula, a large cloud of dust and gas where a huge star exploded in 1843. The nebula is known for its beauty, as well as for hosting the star WR 25, the brightest star in our galaxy. It is large by nebula standards and is located 7,600 light-years away in the constellation Chilia, visible in the southern hemisphere.
Eta Carinae imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 instrument in ultraviolet. The James Webb Space Telescope will image the same nebula in the infrared spectrum. NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of Arizona, Tucson), and J. Morse (BoldlyGo Institute, New York)
The second object is a giant exoplanet called WASP-96b. Located 1,150 light-years away, it is about half the mass of Jupiter and orbits very close to its star, with a year there lasting just 3.4 days. The data on this planet will include a spectrum that can be used to tell what an object is made of. It will likely include data on the exoplanet’s atmosphere, which is one of Webb’s new capabilities.
The third object is another nebula, the Southern Ring Nebula, which is bright and distinctively round, made up of gas around a star that is nearing the end of its life.
The fourth and fifth objects are on a larger scale, including a galaxy group called the Stefan Quintet, located 290 million light-years away, which has four of its five galaxies in very close proximity, and a deep-field image called SMACS 0723, in which gravitational lensing gives a deep view of extremely distant and faint galaxies.
These images are just a taste of the work James Webb will be doing in its first year, and show the variety of object types it can study. The images are scheduled to be released on Tuesday, July 12, beginning at 10:30 a.m. ET (7:30 a.m. PT), and you can watch the release via a live stream on NASA TV.
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