Straughn explains that every dot of light in the image is an individual star, not unlike our Sun, and many likely have orbiting planets. “And of course we know that gas and dust is great raw material for newborn stars and baby planets.” “We have these gigantic, hot young stars up here at the top, and the radiation and stellar winds from these stars is sort of pushing down and running into all of this gas and dust,” says Astrophysicist Amber Straughn of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, describing the image called Cosmic Cliffs. Webb’s infrared capabilities allow it to peer through clouds to reveal hundreds of new stars in breathtaking detail. The Carina Nebula is a turbulent region of star birth, and death, approximately 7,600 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. “This is our time machine, and I’m so thrilled that we got a chance to do it.” Webb also captured images of Stephan’s Quintet, a compact group of five galaxies found in the constellation Pegasus, and of the intriguing planet WASP-96b, a gassy giant some 1,150 light-years from Earth.Īstrophysicist John Mather, senior project scientist for the Webb Telescope and a Nobel Prize winner, began work on Webb back in 1995 just after he helped to measure the Big Bang and determine the age of the universe “It’s the next question,” he said as the images were revealed, “after you know how it started, what happened then?” The telescope, Mather is certain, will help provide some answers. The initial images include the Carina Nebula, a dynamic region of new star birth with at least a dozen massive stars 50 to 100 times the size of our own Sun, and the Southern Ring Nebula, a huge and expanding cloud of gas surrounding a star in its death throes. Webb not only provides incredibly distant views, it does so with such clarity that it allows scientists to study the ages, histories and makeup of the earliest galaxies while they follow our universe’s story back in time towards the Big Bang. These galaxies, which appear faint and red in the image, had never been seen before, and already scientists are studying their composition as Webb reveals concentrations of elements like oxygen, hydrogen and neon within them. SMACS 0723’s combined mass boosts Webb’s power, acting as a gravitational lens that magnifies the far more distant galaxies behind it. Webb’s First Deep Field, as it’s called, is a composite of images at different wavelengths compiled from the telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera in just 12.5 hours. The deepest, sharpest infrared image ever captured of the distant universe reveals a tableau teeming with thousands of galaxies in the cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. After the shot revealed last night by President Biden, scientists released four more amazing images today, the first of many incredible visuals to come. But finally, more than three decades after its conception and after six months in orbit, the James Webb Space Telescope’s first full-color images are delivering an unprecedented look at our Universe. The wait for Webb wasn't quite that long. NASA Administrator Bill Nelson explained that images like this one, dubbed “Webb’s First Deep Field,” allow us to see the universe as it appeared far in the past-the light captured from these galaxies has been traveling through space for 4.6 billion years. Just a century ago scientists believed there was only one galaxy, but this image reveals thousands-all found in a tiny speck of sky comparable in size to a single grain of sand held on a finger at arm’s length by someone standing on the ground. The deepest, sharpest infrared image ever captured of the distant universe was revealed last night-a stunning display of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 delivered by the recently launched James Webb Space Telescope.
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