NASA To Put Forward its First Designed Full-Color Webb Space Telescope Images
James Webb Space Telescope made a highly foresee of pictures and spectroscopic data following a six-month process by aligning its mirror and calibrating instruments, entwining various components. It is a revolutionary invention designed to gaze through the cosmos to the dawn of the universe.
The Webb is a $9 billion infrared telescope, the largest and complex astronomical observatory ever seen in the space. It is about 100 times more sensitive than its 30 years old predecessor, Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits the Earth from 340 miles away. The Hubble operates mainly at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths. Whereas, Webb views the subject more keenly in the infrared spectrum. The telescope was launched on Christmas day from French Guiana, on the northeastern coast of South America.
After a month from its launch, a 14,000-pound (6,350 kg) instrument reached its gravitational parking spot in the solar orbit. It circled the sun in a lineup with the Earth nearly 1 million miles away.
The Webb’s mirror, is its primary and larger light collecting surface. A demonstration of 18 hexagonal segments of gold-coated beryllium metal-enables the telescope to observe objects from greater distance, further back in time, than any other telescopes. Its infrared sensitivity detects light sources that otherwise be unrevealed in spectrum by gas and dust.
All these features, together, are expected to promote astronomy to a new horizon. It has provided the first glimpse of infant galaxies aging to just 100 million years after the Big Ban, which set the expansion of the known universe in action an estimated 13.8 billion years ago.
The instrument is ideal for the search of life supporting atmosphere around plants orbiting distant starts and to observe worlds closer to the earth, such as Mars and Saturn’s moon, Titan.
Webb being finally tunes and fully focused, the astronomers aim to look into the evolution of galaxies, life cycle of stars, the atmospheres of distance exoplanets and the moons of our outer solar system.
On Friday, NASA posted pictures of 5 celestial subjects in its debut of Webb, built for U.S. space agency by aerospace giant Northrop Grumman Corp. Among the pictures there were, two nebulae-huge clouds of gas and dust that blasted into space due to stellar explosion, forming nurseries for new stars and two sets of galaxy clusters.
According to NASA, one of those features objects that act as “gravitational lenses”. It is a visual distortion that enlarges the light coming from behind them and exposing the minute objects further back in time.
NASA will also showcase the spectrographic analysis of an exoplanet that lies 1000 light years away and is half of the ass of Jupiter. It will divulge the molecules of filtered light penetrating through the atmosphere.
“What I have seen moved me as a scientist, as an engineer and as a human being”- Pam Melroy
All five of Wenn’s introductory targets were known to the scientists. Those were-
- Stephan’s Quintet, a galaxy group, 290 million light-years from the Earth. It was discovered in 1877.
Source: putmanmountainnobservatory
Carina Nebula, one of the biggest nebulae- it’s a home to many massive stars that are many times larger than the Sun. It is four time bigger than the Orion Nebula.
Source:Here are the James Webb Space Telescope’s first targets | Technology News,The Indian Express
- WASP-96 b- It was discovered in 2014, a massive planet nearly 1150 light years away from the Earth. It orbits the star every three-four day and is half the mass of Jupiter. The exoplanet is almost cloud free with excessive sodium.
- Southern Nebula- A planetary nebula, that is a cloud of gas surrounding a dying star, also known as the “Eight-Burst” nebula because of its eight like figure. It is 2,000 light years away from the Earth. The dying star is in the center of the nebula, and the gases are moving away from it at a speed of 9 miles per second.
Source: Here are the James Webb Space Telescope’s first targets | Technology News,The Indian Express
- SMACS 0723- A cluster of galaxies creating, “gravity lens”. It distorts the light from behind which helps scientists view extremely distant and fainter cosmic objects.
NASA deputy administrator, Pam Melroy, who reviewed the images, said, “What I have seen moved me as a scientist, as an engineer and as a human being,”. NASA officials promised, Webb to capture images of subjects in a completely new light.
The space agency said, one unspecified image will be disclosed by U.S. President Joe Biden on Monday evening with NASA chief Bill Nelson. The other images will be unveiled as scheduled in a live broadcast and webcast on Tuesday from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland and its European and Canadian space agency collaborators.
