The “Cosmic Cliffs” of the Carina Nebula. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team / Handout via Reuters
A multicolored seascape of bright gas and dust that is the chaotic cradle of newborn solar systems. An intricate bubble thrown into space by a dying star. Lots of slow motion galaxies that reveal the hidden architecture of disruption. A cosmic magnifying glass that uses a massive concentration of matter to probe the boundaries of the visible universe. And an undulating series of data points that carry the signature of water vapor into the atmosphere of a distant world.
With one striking vision after another, the recently commissioned James Webb Space Telescope has signaled a change of era in the ability of astronomers to observe and understand our universe.
First, this week’s launch of Webb’s first color images confirms its quintessential ability to perceive lenses that are farther away and fainter than any telescope has seen before. But they also prove that it is a versatile discovery engine that can be applied to a wide range of cosmic mysteries.
“We are turning the page on many, many new chapters in astrophysics. Everything will change completely,” said René Doyon, a professor of astronomy at the University of Montreal and lead researcher on the Canadian scientific team Webb.
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Canada’s role in the development and construction of one of Webb’s four scientific instruments will provide the country’s scientists with a guaranteed share of time in the telescope. The European Space Agency is also a member. But NASA is the main driver and biller of the $ 10 billion project, and it was the U.S. space agency that led Webb’s public debut, more than six months after the launch of the new telescope.
The events began on Monday afternoon with the ceremonial presentation of a first image of US President Joe Biden.
Distant galaxies and a long time ago
The debut photo of a massive cluster of distant galaxies bending light from objects in the background was a quintessential demonstration of Webb’s ability to perceive targets that are farther away and fainter than any telescope has seen before. .
The photo shows the distant cluster of galaxies SMACS J0723.3-7327, a cosmic magnifying glass about five billion light-years away that distorts and amplifies the view of more distant galaxies at the outer edges of the visible universe.
Deep-field composite images of the SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster from the middle (left) and near-infrared instruments of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope NASA / Reuters
The presentation continued Tuesday morning with four additional releases. In addition to its visual appeal, the five celestial objects selected for Webb’s initial round of observations show the telescope’s full set of capabilities, including the contributions of each of its scientific instruments operating at different bandwidths.
They are all located in the infrared part of the spectrum, which the human eye cannot see, but ideal for studying objects from the distant universe and nearby phenomena, such as the birth of new stars, which are usually hidden behind interstellar dust curtains. .
The Carina Nebula
A vast region of star formation in our Milky Way galaxy located 7,500 light-years away.
The “Cosmic Cliffs” of the Carina Nebula. The image is divided horizontally by a wavy line between a landscape of clouds that forms a nebula along the bottom and a relatively clear top. On either side is a starry field dotted with countless stars of many sizes. NASA / Reuters
A landscape of mountains and valleys dotted with bright stars that is actually the edge of a nearby, young star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. This image reveals for the first time areas of birth of previously invisible stars combining information captured by the nearby infrared camera and the medium infrared instrument. HANDOUT / AFP / Getty Images
The southern ring nebula
A luminous layer of gas, 2,000 light-years from Earth, that was ejected from a dying star and engraved with a spirograph-like pattern by an orbiting companion.
The southern ring nebula in near-infrared light, on the left, and middle-infrared light, on the right. In the image of the nearby infrared camera, the white dwarf appears at the bottom left of the bright central star, partially hidden by a diffraction tip. The same star appears, but brighter, larger and redder, in the image of the medium infrared instrument. This white dwarf star is covered in thick layers of dust, which make it look bigger. NASA / Reuters
Stephan’s Quintet
An iconic group of five galaxies, four of which are in an envelope of complex gravitational interactions that take place at a distance of 290 million light-years.
A combination of near and medium infrared data shows a group of five galaxies appearing close to each other in the sky: two in the middle, one at the top, one at the top left, and one at the bottom. .NASA / Reuters
The results, gathered with superlatives from the entire astronomical community, show that the telescope’s scientific mission is already underway, and a cascade of data is expected to begin distributing to researchers on Thursday.
“The world’s vehicle for deep space exploration is open for business, all on board,” Eric Smith, chief scientist in NASA’s astrophysics division, said during a news conference Tuesday at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
In fact, the quality and amount of information seen in Webb’s early images is so great that the milestone has historical significance as part of a broader saga of scientific development.
It has been 412 years since Galileo turned a small tube with glass lenses into the night sky and showed that there is more in the sky, much more, than only the eye can perceive.
Since then, the desktop device gave way to large ducts of light reaching over the rooftops to cling to the starry sky. In Greenwich, Paris, and beyond, new temples of observation were built for professional observers of the sky, who were no longer concerned with making horoscopes but with discerning the great machinery of creation.
From the cities to the tops of the mountains, the telescope was transported by equipment of mules and platform truck. It arose from the wooded slopes of California to the highlands of Hawaii and the Andes.
It then left Earth completely, launched into orbit to become a celestial object in its own right, even though it took the gaze of humanity billions of light years farther into outer space.
Now, a new step has been added to the remarkable rise of the telescope, introduced by an instrument in Webb that can penetrate to the farthest reaches of the observable universe and address some of the most fundamental questions ever asked about the cosmos, including how the first stars and galaxies formed, and whether there is life beyond Earth.
This last question was evoked by the only release this week that did not include an image.
The spectrum of WASP-96b
It is a spectrum obtained by analyzing light filtered by the atmosphere of a planet as it crosses in front of the orbiting star. The result confirms the presence of water molecules in the atmosphere.
A light curve from Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph shows the change in light brightness of the WASP-96 stellar system over time as the planet travels through the star. A transit occurs when an orbiting planet moves between the star and the telescope, blocking some of the star’s light. NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / Handout
The planet, known as WASP-96 b, is a gas giant about half the mass of Jupiter, but much hotter because of its proximity to the star. This makes it a very unlikely place to host life, but the same technique can now be applied to a wide range of planets, and you could possibly find indirect evidence of it if found.
“We will look for ozone, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide and all these different signatures that tell us interesting things about what might be producing them on the planet, be it volcanism, a chemical reaction, a geophysical reaction or maybe a biological reaction.” said Nathalie Ouellette, an astrophysicist at the Exoplanet Research Institute at the University of Montreal.
A transmission spectrum made from a single observation using the near-infrared image and Webb’s Slitless spectrograph reveals the atmospheric characteristics of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-96 b.NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI
Dr. Ouellette added that Webb’s historic predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, was launched years before a large number of planets were detected orbiting other stars in our galaxy, so it was never optimized to observe them. Webb is a different story, and exoplanets is an area where Canadian researchers intend to leave a mark, with the help of the hardware that Canada has provided.
Sarah Gallagher, a professor of astronomy at Western University in London, Ontario, and a scientific advisor to the Canadian Space Agency, said she was particularly struck by Webb’s view of Stephan’s Quintet, which she has studied.
Galaxies were images by two of Webb’s instruments: one showing a vision relatively similar to what the eye would see, the other showing how they appear when dust is removed and shock waves and other structures resulting from the movements. of galaxies are apparent.
“I think what’s so exciting is that we can already see unexpected things,” Dr. Gallagher said.
In general, astronomers have commented extensively on two of the features of Webb images that make them different from those produced by Hubble. The first is the disorienting effect of looking at the universe with infrared light, but with a sharpness and a level of detail that was previously only known in …