the telescope will photograph distant galaxies
The Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes combined forces to photograph a small, distant galaxy amplified by gravitational lensing. By Amber Jorgenson | Published: Friday, January 12, 2018
The famous James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is gigantic. Its primary mirror is 6.5 m (21 ft 4 inch) across, so you could park a Ford F-150 pickup truck on it with nearly a meter of space to
WASHINGTON - Just a week after its first images were shown to the world, the James Webb Space Telescope may have found a galaxy that existed 13.5 billion years ago, a scientist who analyzed the data said Wednesday. Known as GLASS-z13, the galaxy dates back to 300 million years after the Big Bang, about 100 million years earlier than anything
As a "first light" bonus, a camera on the NIRCam took a picture of the mirror array itself — the closest look at the spacecraft that anyone has gotten since shortly after it left Earth. The first
WASHINGTON, July 11 (Reuters) - U.S. President Joe Biden, pausing from political pressures to bask in the glow of the cosmos, on Monday released the debut photo from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope - an image of a galaxy cluster revealing the most detailed glimpse of the early universe ever seen. The White House sneak peek of Webb 's first high-resolution, full - color image came
lirik lagu desaku yang kucinta beserta not nya. “This infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope JWST was taken for the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES, program. It shows a portion of an area of the sky known as GOODS-South, which has been well studied by the Hubble Space Telescope and other observatories. More than 45,000 galaxies are visible here.” Credits NASA, ESA, CSA, Brant Robertson UC Santa Cruz, Ben Johnson CfA, Sandro Tacchella Cambridge, Marcia Rieke University of Arizona, Daniel Eisenstein CfA. Image processing Alyssa Pagan STScI “Among the most fundamental questions in astronomy is How did the first stars and galaxies form?” NASA writes. The James Webb Space Telescope hasn’t been in space long, but it’s already delivering critical insights into this monumental question. JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey JADES Searches for Ancient Galaxies A new image captured as part of one of Webb’s most significant scientific programs, the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES, is not only visually stunning but also incredibly important for scientists working to understand the universe’s history, especially its earliest days. The Webb team explains, “In this image, blue, green, and red were assigned to Webb’s NIRCam Near-Infrared Camera data at and microns; and microns; and and microns F090W, F115W, and F150W; F200W, F277W, and F335M; and F356W, F410M, and F444W, respectively.” This is a 100 percent crop from the full-size Webb image. As part of JADES, Webb will dedicate just over a month of its valuable telescope time to capture and analyze very faint, distant galaxies. Some of the observations have already occurred, and the data continues to roll in from these early images. “While the data is still coming in, JADES already has discovered hundreds of galaxies that existed when the universe was less than 600 million years old. The team also has identified galaxies sparkling with a multitude of young, hot stars,” NASA explains. The area, GOODS-South, has also been imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope, which helps put in perspective just how much more detail Webb offers. This relatively recent image of GOODS-South was captured by Hubble in 2016. It’s a very impressive image, rich with galaxies, but Webb has been able to peer much further back in time thanks to its relatively higher resolution and sensitivity. Credit NASA, ESA/Hubble The Importance of Stars and the Epoch of Reionization “With JADES, we want to answer a lot of questions, like How did the earliest galaxies assemble themselves? How fast did they form stars? Why do some galaxies stop forming stars?” says Marcia Rieke of the University of Arizona in Tucson, co-lead of the JADES program. Ryan Endsley of the University of Texas at Austin led an investigation into the galaxies that existed a mere 500 to 850 million years following the big bang. This period, known as the Epoch of Reionization, remains quite mysterious. Credit NASA, ESA, CSA, Joyce Kang STScI NASA explains reionization, writing, “For hundreds of millions of years after the big bang, the universe was filled with a gaseous fog that made it opaque to energetic light. By one billion years after the big bang, the fog had cleared and the universe became transparent, a process known as reionization.” 100 percent crop Some scientists believe that supermassive black holes caused the eponymous reionization, others believe that galaxies full of young stars, which burn extremely hotly, were the impetus behind reionization. As part of JADES, Endsley and his colleagues have been studying these all-important distant, old galaxies using Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph NIRSpec instrument. The team wanted to find evidence of star formation and find it they did. “Almost every single galaxy that we are finding shows these unusually strong emission line signatures indicating intense recent star formation. These early galaxies were very good at creating hot, massive stars,” says Endsley. 100 percent crop The bright, massive stars in turn fired torrents of ultraviolet light off into space, which changed the nature of surrounding gas from opaque to transparent. This was achieved through ionization, which is the process of removing electrons from their nuclei. Because early galaxies had so many hot, massive stars, they may have been the primary catalyst for the reionization process that has been hotly debated within the scientific community. “Endsley and his colleagues also found evidence that these young galaxies underwent periods of rapid star formation interspersed with quiet periods where fewer stars formed. These fits and starts may have occurred as galaxies captured clumps of the gaseous raw materials needed to form stars. Alternatively, since massive stars quickly explode, they may have injected energy into the surrounding environment periodically, preventing gas from condensing to form new stars,” writes NASA. 100 percent crop Revealing the Early Universe Another large component of JADES is searching for very early galaxies, which in this context are galaxies that existed less than 400 million years after the big bang. “By studying these galaxies, astronomers can explore how star formation in the early years after the big bang was different from what is seen in current times. The light from faraway galaxies is stretched to longer wavelengths and redder colors by the expansion of the universe — a phenomenon called redshift. By measuring a galaxy’s redshift, astronomers can learn how far away it is and, therefore, when it existed in the early universe,” NASA explains. Credit NASA, ESA, CSA, Joyce Kang STScI Webb has already transformed how scientists search for these very old galaxies. NASA says, “Before Webb, there were only a few dozen galaxies observed above a redshift of eight, when the universe was younger than 650 million years old, but JADES has now uncovered nearly a thousand of these extremely distant galaxies.” In relatively little observation time, Webb has revolutionized the search for ancient galaxies. 100 percent crop Spectrum is an important tool when searching for very old galaxies. “The gold standard for determining redshift involves looking at a galaxy’s spectrum, which measures its brightness at a myriad of closely spaced wavelengths. But a good approximation can be determined by taking photos of a galaxy using filters that each cover a narrow band of colors to get a handful of brightness measurements. In this way, researchers can determine estimates for the distances of many thousands of galaxies at once,” NASA explains. Kevin Hainline of the University of Arizona in Tucson and his colleagues used Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera NIRCAM, to obtain these critical spectral measurements, which are called photometric redshifts. Hainline’s team identified more than 700 galaxies that they believe existed when the universe was between 370 million and 650 million years old. The huge number of candidate galaxies far outstrips even the most optimistic estimates scientists had prior to Webb’s launch. Webb’s groundbreaking resolution and spectral sensitivity are paying huge dividends. “Previously, the earliest galaxies we could see just looked like little smudges. And yet those smudges represent millions or even billions of stars at the beginning of the universe,” says Hainline. “Now, we can see that some of them are actually extended objects with visible structure. We can see groupings of stars being born only a few hundred million years after the beginning of time.” Image credits NASA, ESA, CSA, Brant Robertson UC Santa Cruz, Ben Johnson CfA, Sandro Tacchella Cambridge, Marcia Rieke University of Arizona, Daniel Eisenstein CfA. Image processing Alyssa Pagan STScI
The bright star at the center of NGC 3132, Southern Nebula Ring, while prominent when viewed by NASA's Webb Telescope in near-infrared light, plays a supporting role in sculpting the surrounding nebula. A second star, barely visible at lower left along one of the bright star's diffraction spikes, is the nebula's source. It has ejected at least eight layers of gas and dust over thousands of years. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI hide caption toggle caption NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The bright star at the center of NGC 3132, Southern Nebula Ring, while prominent when viewed by NASA's Webb Telescope in near-infrared light, plays a supporting role in sculpting the surrounding nebula. A second star, barely visible at lower left along one of the bright star's diffraction spikes, is the nebula's source. It has ejected at least eight layers of gas and dust over thousands of years. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The universe's splendor and breadth are on display like never before, thanks to a new batch of images that NASA released from the James Webb Space Telescope on Tuesday. The images from the new telescope are "really gorgeous," said NASA's Jane Rigby, the operations project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope. "That's something that has been true for every image we've gotten with Webb," she added. "We can't take blank sky [images]. Everywhere we look, there's galaxies everywhere." The images reflect five areas of space that researchers agreed to target the exoplanet WASP-96 b; the Southern Ring Nebula; the Carina Nebula; Stephan's Quintet five galaxies in the constellation Pegasus; and the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. A nursery for the stars One of the most eye-popping images released on Tuesday depicts what looks to be cosmic cliffs, valleys and mountains — albeit with mountains that stretch to seven light-years in height. What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera NIRCam on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI hide caption toggle caption NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera NIRCam on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The image captures part of a "stellar nursery called NGC 3324 at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula," NASA said. It's roughly 7,600 light-years from Earth. "The blistering, ultraviolet radiation from the young stars is sculpting the nebula's wall by slowly eroding it away," the agency added. "Dramatic pillars tower above the glowing wall of gas, resisting this radiation. The 'steam' that appears to rise from the celestial 'mountains' is actually hot, ionized gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula due to the relentless radiation." Galaxies from 'It's a Wonderful Life' stun scientists The tight galaxy group called Stephan's Quintet is a "laboratory" for scientists to study the powerful effects galaxies can exert on each other, thanks to new data from the Webb telescope. An enormous mosaic of Stephan's Quintet is the largest image to date from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, covering about one-fifth of the Moon's diameter. It contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. The visual grouping of five galaxies was captured by Webb's Near-Infrared Camera NIRCam and Mid-Infrared Instrument MIRI. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI hide caption toggle caption NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI An enormous mosaic of Stephan's Quintet is the largest image to date from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, covering about one-fifth of the Moon's diameter. It contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. The visual grouping of five galaxies was captured by Webb's Near-Infrared Camera NIRCam and Mid-Infrared Instrument MIRI. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Researchers hope to learn more about how galaxies merge and interact, including triggering each other to form new stars, and how those processes might be impacted by supermassive black holes. The image casts the quintet in a new light, after they represented angels in Frank Capra's class film It's a Wonderful Life. "This enormous mosaic is Webb's largest image to date, covering about one-fifth of the Moon's diameter," NASA said. "It contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files." Catch a dying star Webb pulled the veil back on the second star in the Southern Ring Nebula, using mid-infrared wavelengths to capture it in extraordinary detail. "The star closely orbits its companion as it periodically ejects layers of gas and dust," NASA said. "Together, the swirling duo have created a fantastic landscape of asymmetrical shells." The new image shows the nebula from a nearly head-on view. But if we could see it from its edge, NASA says, "its three-dimensional shape would more clearly look like two bowls placed together at the bottom, opening away from one another with a large hole at the center." Webb delivers a portrait of a puffy giant "WASP-96 b is a giant planet outside our solar system, composed mainly of gas," NASA said. "The planet, located nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, orbits its star every days. It has about half the mass of Jupiter, and its discovery was announced in 2014." The agency didn't release a photo but rather a spectrum analysis of WASP-96 b's atmosphere, garnered from Webb sighting the WASP-96 b as it transited in front of a star. A transmission spectrum made from a single observation using Webb's Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph NIRISS reveals atmospheric characteristics of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-96 b. Illustration NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI hide caption toggle caption Illustration NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI A transmission spectrum made from a single observation using Webb's Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph NIRISS reveals atmospheric characteristics of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-96 b. Illustration NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI A light curve from Webb's Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph NIRISS shows the change in brightness of light from the WASP-96 star system over time as the planet transits the star. A transit occurs when an orbiting planet moves between the star and the telescope, blocking some of the light from the star. Illustration NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI hide caption toggle caption Illustration NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI A light curve from Webb's Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph NIRISS shows the change in brightness of light from the WASP-96 star system over time as the planet transits the star. A transit occurs when an orbiting planet moves between the star and the telescope, blocking some of the light from the star. Illustration NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The analysis found the "chemical fingerprint" of water in the atmosphere, said Knicole Colon, a research astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. A look at some of the universe's first galaxies ever The trove of images comes one day after a jaw-dropping first image was published by NASA and the White House, more than six months after the telescope was launched from Earth. That first image showed the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb's First Deep Field. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb's First Deep Field, this composite image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared billion years ago. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI hide caption toggle caption NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb's First Deep Field, this composite image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared billion years ago. NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI "If you held a grain of sand on the tip of your finger at arm's length, that is the part of the universe you are seeing — just one little speck of the universe," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said on Monday. But that speck contains multitudes. And thanks to the telescope's deep and sharp infrared images, Earthlings are getting a more detailed look at distant galaxies than was ever possible. That first image comprises thousands of galaxies, with even faint and diffuse structures visible for the first time. "This deep field, taken by Webb's Near-Infrared Camera NIRCam, is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope's deepest fields, which took weeks," NASA said. The stunning displays amount to a rich lesson in the history of the universe some of the galaxies are more than 13 billion years old, meaning they formed relatively soon after the Big Bang. For instance, the image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 amounts to a snapshot from billion years ago. Aside from gaping at stunning views like everyone else, researchers will use data from the Webb telescope "to learn more about the galaxies' masses, ages, histories, and compositions," according to NASA. The Webb Space Telescope is the culmination of an international program led by NASA. Its partners include the European Space Agency, or ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency.
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has shared a mesmerising and never-before-seen picture showing more than 45,000 galaxies in one frame. The picture was of a portion of the sky known as GOODS-Sout. James Webb Space Telescope captured the image as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey per the space agency, around 32 days of the telescope time will be devoted to the JADES programme to uncover and characterise distant and faint galaxies as astronomers make efforts to understand how the first stars and galaxies were formed. Although the data is still pouring in, hundreds of galaxies have already been discovered that existed when the universe had not completed 600 million years. Galaxies, which were sparkling along with a number of young, hot stars, have also been identified by the of the JADES programme and professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson Marcia Rieke said, "With JADES, we want to answer a lot of questions, like How did the earliest galaxies assemble themselves? How fast did they form stars? Why do some galaxies stop forming stars?"The part of the sky was previously observed by the Hubble telescope. You're looking at 45,000+ galaxies. This image was taken as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey JADES — a massive science program that’s revolutionizing what we know about galaxies in the early universe Here are the highlights ⬇️ — NASA Webb Telescope NASAWebb June 5, 2023 × Investigation into galaxies that existed 500 to 850 million years after the big bang University of Texas' Ryan Endsley headed the investigation into galaxies which existed 500 to 850 million years after the big bang occurred. "For hundreds of millions of years after the big bang, the universe was filled with a gaseous fog that made it opaque to energetic light. By one billion years after the big bang, the fog had cleared and the universe became transparent, a process known as reionisation. Scientists have debated whether active, supermassive black holes or galaxies full of hot, young stars were the primary cause of reionisation," the space agency explained. The researchers found evidence of young galaxies going through rapid star formation interspersed with short periods where fewer stars formed. WATCH NASA mission to Saturn's moon Titan may unravel secrets behind origin of life “Almost every single galaxy that we are finding shows these unusually strong emission line signatures indicating intense recent star formation. These early galaxies were very good at creating hot, massive stars,” stated Ryan Endsley of the University of Texas, who headed the investigation.“Previously, the earliest galaxies we could see just looked like little smudges. And yet those smudges represent millions or even billions of stars at the beginning of the universe. Now, we can see that some of them are actually extended objects with visible structures. We can see groupings of stars being born only a few hundred million years after the beginning of time,” stated Kevin Hainline of the University of Arizona, in a statement. "We're finding star formation in the early universe is much more complicated than we thought," Rieke stated. You can now write for and be a part of the community. Share your stories and opinions with us WION LIVE HERE
Nasa’s new space telescope has gazed into the distant universe and shown perfect vision a spiky image of a faraway star photobombed by thousands of ancient image released on Wednesday from the James Webb Space telescope was a test shot – not an official science observation – to see how its 18 hexagonal mirrors worked together for a single coordinated image taken 1m miles km away from Earth. Officials said it worked better than month, Nasa looked at a much closer star with 18 separate images from its mirror segments. That star, known as HD 84406, is 258 light years away in the constellation Ursa said they were giddy as they watched the latest test photos arrive. Nasa’s test image was aimed at a star 100 times fainter than the human eye can see. This star – called 2MASS J17554042+6551277 – is 2,000 light years away from HD 84406. A light year is nearly 6tn miles km.The shape of Webb’s mirrors and its filters made the shimmering star look more red and spiky but the background really stole the show.“You can’t help but see those thousands of galaxies behind it, really gorgeous,” said Jane Rigby, Webb operations project galaxies are several billions of years old. Eventually, scientists hope Webb will see so far away and back in time that it will only be “a couple hundred million years after the big bang”, she first science images won’t come until late June or early $10bn Webb – successor to the nearly 32-year-old Hubble Space Telescope – blasted off from South America in December and reached its designated perch in January.
Astronomers have detected organic molecules in the most distant galaxy to date using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, demonstrating the power of Webb to help understand the complex chemistry that goes hand-in-hand with the birth of new stars even in the earliest periods of the universe’s history. The molecules — which are found on Earth in smoke, soot and smog — are in a galaxy that formed when the universe was less than billion years old, about 10 per cent of its current discovery is significant because it may help scientists understand how stars formed in the earliest stages of the universe and casts doubt on a long-held belief that where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The international team, including Dalhousie University astrophysicist Scott Chapman and Texas A&M University astronomer Justin Spilker, found the organic molecules polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons or PAH in a galaxy more than 12 billion light years away. The galaxy was first discovered by the National Science Foundation’s South Pole Telescope in 2013. "This galaxy is one of the most luminous in the universe, forming stars at a very high rate — 100s of times more rapidly than our own Milky Way. We were hoping to get new insights in the chemistry of the gas supply for forming stars to understand how galaxies like this are forming stars so rapidly," says Dr. Chapman, pictured above right. "Thanks to the high-definition images from Webb, we found a lot of regions with PAH or 'smoke,' but no star formation, and others with new stars forming but no smoke. This is very unlike local galaxies — where if there's PAH, there are stars forming." Einstein ring The discovery, published in the journal Nature, was made possible through the combined powers of Webb and fate, with a little help from a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. Lensing, originally predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity, happens when two galaxies are almost perfectly aligned from our point of view on Earth. The light from the background galaxy is stretched and magnified by the foreground galaxy into a ring-like shape, known as an Einstein ring. "We were amongst the very first users of the new James Webb Space Telescope. Its capabilities allowed us to detect the molecule in a galaxy that is extremely far away from us, and thus seen in the very early universe, not long after the Big Bang," says Dr. Chapman. "Previously, this molecule had only been detectable in relatively nearby galaxies." The data from Webb found the telltale signature of large organic molecules akin to smog and smoke — building blocks of the same cancer-causing hydrocarbon emissions on Earth that are key contributors to atmospheric pollution. However, the implications of galactic smoke signals are much less disastrous for their cosmic ecosystems and are quite common in space. It was thought their presence was a sign that new stars were being created. The new results from Webb show that this idea might not exactly ring true in the early universe. “Thanks to the high-definition images from Webb, we found a lot of regions with smoke but no star formation, and others with new stars forming but no smoke,” said Dr. Spilker, an assistant professor in the Texas A&M Department of Physics and Astronomy. A figure included in the Nature study. Nature The power of the Webb Discoveries like this are precisely what Webb was built to do understand the earliest stages of the universe in new and exciting ways. "This was incredibly exciting to get some of the first observations coming off the new JWST. And extra exciting to see how powerful the telescope is, and how well it works," says Dr. Chapman. The team, which included dozens of astronomers from around the world, says the discovery is Webb’s first detection of complex molecules in the early universe – a milestone moment seen as a beginning rather than an end. "Detecting smoke in a galaxy early in the history of the universe? Webb makes this look easy. Now that we’ve shown this is possible for the first time, we’re looking forward to trying to understand whether it’s really true that where there’s smoke, there’s fire," says Dr. Spilker. "The only way to know for sure is to look at more galaxies, hopefully even further away than this one." JWST is operated by the Space Telescope Science Institute under the management of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. Recommended reading When galaxies collide
the telescope will photograph distant galaxies