NASA is gearing up to unveil the first cosmic images from the most powerful telescope ever launched into space: the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The space agency announced on Friday that the telescope’s initial cosmic photographs will offer previously unattainable perspectives of far-off galaxies, brilliant nebulae, and a massive gas planet. A big reveal of the early observations by the $10 billion observatory which replaced the Hubble telescope, will be done in just a few days on July 12. The US, European, and Canadian space agencies are preparing to reveal the telescope’s fresh insights into the universe’s beginnings.
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In an interview with AFP last week, Klaus Pontoppidan, an astronomer at the STSI Space Telescope Science Institute (STSI), which is in charge of Webb, said: “I’m looking very much forward to not having to keep these secrets anymore. That will be a great relief.”
The Carina Nebula, a massive cloud of gas and dust located 7,600 light-years away, as well as the Southern Ring Nebula, which encircles a fading star 2,000 light-years away, were selected as part of the first batch of full-colour scientific photos by an international committee.
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Webb has also performed spectroscopy, which is the precise examination of light, on the distant gas giant WASP-96 b, which was found in 2014 and is located almost 1,150 light-years from Earth. Then comes Stephan’s Quintet, a small galaxy 290 million light-years away.
And possibly the most fascinating of all…using a process, called “gravitational lensing,” Webb has assembled an image of incredibly far away and faint galaxies. For this, it used foreground galaxy clusters named SMACS 0723 as a type of cosmic magnifying glass for galaxies behind it.
To entice us all the space agencies have even dropped a small teaser:
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Dan Coe, an astronomer at STSI, told AFP on Friday that the telescope has made scientific breakthroughs even in its maiden photographs.
“When I first saw the images… of this deep field of this galaxy cluster lensing, I looked at the images, and I suddenly learned three things about the universe that I didn’t know before,” he said.
“It’s totally blown my mind.”
(With inputs from agencies)
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