First data and first images of the James Webb Space Telescope announced

Around midnight today, US President Joe Biden presented the first image of the James Webb space telescope. This is the cluster of galaxies SMACS 0723 which has already shown the potential of the new scientific instrument even compared to a veteran like the Hubble Space Telescope (which, however, mostly uses different wavelengths). But now is the time to see more images ei first data captured by the JWST.

In recent days it was announced that today, 12 July at 16:30 (Italian time), it would be possible to see a series of objectives chosen by the scientists both for research purposes but also to amaze the public of enthusiasts and thus begin the observation campaign. from JWST. The first part of the mission will last five years and will begin to bear fruit over time, you could then enter the extended mission (which will take the useful life of the telescope up to ten years) while the propellant on board could last up to twenty. years.

The first images and data from the James Webb Space Telescope

Beyond SMACS 0723several were the objectives selected by the scientists for this event which was held jointly between NASA, ESA And CSA. This is a historic moment if you think about the idea of ​​realizing the JWST (when it still did not have a definitive name) dates back to the mid-90s. The finalization of the design, its construction and its launch (on Christmas day 2021) then brought the space telescope 1.5 million km from Earth around the second Lagrange point.

Here are some of the highlights after the launch of JWST:

The new images of JWST

From the image of SMACS 0723 it was possible to extract the first data and, for example, the spectrum of a galaxy 13.1 billion light years away was analyzed thanks to NIRSpec. This instrument allows, thanks to micro-windows, to observe several objects at the same time and in particular in this case the objectives were 48 galaxies.

Using NIRISS it was also possible to characterize some of the galaxies of the gravitational lensing seen in the first image released. It was thus ensured that what appeared to be two distinct galaxies were actually the same galaxy (thanks to the identical spectrum).

NIRISS instead it focused on the exoplanet WASP-96 b. Although the scientists have specified that it will take longer to have a precise characterization, we know that water vapor is present in the atmosphere (collected in clouds but it would also be present in the “Mist”) even if the atmospheric temperature is around 725 ° C and oxygen and carbon are also present. The distance of this exoplanet is 1150 light years from Earth (inside the Milky Way) and the interesting thing is that it orbits a star similar to our Sun. The observation lasted 6 hours and 23 minutes while the transit of the he exoplanet in front of the star was 2.5 hours (allowing a total of 280 measurements).

Another tool of James Webb space telescope, NIRCamallowed to photograph the Southern Ring Nebula with incredible detail. Thanks to the instrument it was possible to frame the star at the center of NGC 3132 (another name of the Nebula) while you can also see another star, less bright in the lower left, which has ejected material at least eight times in the course of thousands of years then creating the actual nebula. The central star, on the other hand, had the role of modifying the conformation of the gases by creating turbulence. Where you see the green water color you have to imagine that gas and dust are more dense by changing the path of light. Thanks to the use of infrared, less sensitive to dust, it is possible to see some distant galaxies in the background.

The Stephan Quintet has been captured using NIRCam And MIRI and is currently the largest image captured by the James Webb space telescope (covering one fifth of the diameter of the Moon). Inside the image there are more than 150 million pixels and it is a mosaic created from a thousand different single images. Thanks to the resolution it is capable of JWST you can see details of millions of younger stars and stellar regions star regions where new ones are being born. This quintet sees the galaxy NGC 7320 (40 million light years from Earth) farther than the other four, while NGC 7317, NGC 7318A, NGC 7318B and NGC 7319 are 290 million light years away. Together they still appear as a whole grouped in an area of ​​reduced space. The quintet’s study will help astronomers understand the interaction between galaxies and their merging.

NGC 7319 (the top one) has a supermassive black hole with a mass of 24 million solar masses and emits light like 40 billion suns. Thanks to NIRSpec it was possible to characterize the elements found in the active region around it by finding atomic hydrogen (in blue and yellow), iron ions (in green water), molecular hydrogen (in red) allowing to reconstruct the movements of matter .

Finally there is the Carina Nebula. Here NIRCam was used to frame the star formation zone NGC 3324 at a distance of 7600 light years. Here young stars emit large amounts of matter and gas changing the conformation of the dust all around and creating what looks like a space reef. You can also see some stars that would have been hidden from Hubble’s view as well as galaxies in the background. There is no lack of ionized gas that seems to rise up this mountain, widespread protostellar jets and more generally a chaotic environment.

A full list of images is available on the dedicated ESA website where you can also find other images, higher resolution images and in-depth explanations of what you are seeing. This, as always, is only the beginning of what it will hold for us JWST. Much will come in the next few years.

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