Cosmic cliffs and dancing galaxies: Webb begins era of d iscovery
THE cosmic cliffs of a stellar nursery and a quintet of galaxies bound in a celestial dance: Nasa released the next wave of images from the James Webb Space Telescope on Tuesday, heralding a new era of astronomy.
“Every image is a new discovery,” said Nasa administrator Bill Nelson. “Each will give humanity a view of the universe that we’ve never seen before.”
Released one by one starting from 10.30am Eastern (1430 GMT) at the Goddard Space Flight Centre, the new images demonstrated the full power of the $10 billion (R169.4 bn) observatory, which uses infra-red cameras to gaze into the distant universe with unprecedented clarity.
“They’re beautiful, and they’re full of wonderful discoveries and science, and lots of things we haven’t identified are in there,” Nobel-winning cosmologist and Webb senior project scientist John Mather told AFP.
On Monday, Webb revealed the sharpest image to date of the early universe, teeming with thousands of galaxies going back more than 13 billion years.
The latest tranche included the “mountains” and “valleys” of a star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula, dubbed the “Cosmic Cliffs,” 7 600 light-years away.
“For the first time, we’re seeing brand new stars that were previously hidden from our view,” said Nasa astrophysicist Amber Straughn.
Stellar nurseries and graveyards
Webb also revealed never-before-seen details of Stephan’s Quintet, a grouping of five galaxies, including four that experience repeated close encounters, which provide insights into how early galaxies formed at the start of the universe.
At the centre of the cluster is a black hole called an active galactic nucleus, “which means stuff is flowing in, it gets cooked to high temperatures, and some of it gets spit back out again”, explained Mather.
Studying the black hole will allow scientists to better understand the one at the centre of our own Milky Way, called Sagittarius A*.
A dim star at the centre of the Southern Ring Nebula was found for the first time to be cloaked in dust as it spews out rings of gas and dust in its death throes.
Understanding the molecules present in such stellar graveyards can help scientists learn more about the process of stellar death.
The telescope also detailed water vapour in the atmosphere of a faraway giant gas planet.
The spectroscopy – an analysis of light that reveals detailed information – was of planet WASP-96 b, which was discovered in 2014.
Scientists will next hope to train the spectrographic instruments on small rocky worlds such as our own, to search for signs of habitability.
discoveries
Fundamental expected
Webb’s first images have set the space community alight and will also be shown on giant screens in New York City’s Times Square and in London.
Launched in December 2021 from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket, Webb is orbiting the Sun at a distance of 1.6 million kilometres from Earth.
A wonder of engineering, Webb is one of the most expensive scientific platforms to date, comparable to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, and also among the most complex machines ever built.
Webb’s primary mirror is over6.5m wide and is made up of 18 gold-coated