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Recently the James space telescope Webb captured its first direct image of an exoplanet. But that was only one “general test” of its potential that will be pushed much further over time allowing us to see much more than what we have been able to discover so far. After all, as repeated several times, this is only the beginning of his adventure and many data and many other discoveries await us in the coming years.
If the images of the exoplanet (or the detection of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of another) are “spectacular” from a scientific point of view but less “satisfying” from that of sight, the JWST he has already hinted at how beautiful the images he will be able to capture of other celestial objects can be. It was understood in mid-July when the first images were revealed and later with Messier 74, the Chariot Wheel Galaxy or with Jupiter. In the past few days she has become “viral” the image of WR 140 (a Wolf-Rayet star) shoot in July.
The James Webb Space Telescope and the WR 140 star
The image was initially spread from an automated account of Twitter that publishes the images captured by the JWST. The image in that case was not particularly spectacular even though it was starting to reveal the structure of WR 140. Thanks to the processing it was possible to improve its quality and at the same time make it even more appreciable to the eye (which covers a width of about 2 light years).
The WR 140 system. Click on the image to enlarge
There are two elements that are highlighted. One is the six-pointed structure form which is one “signature” typical of James Webb space telescope due to the hexagonal segments of the primary mirror (by way of comparison, Hubble has four due to the support of the secondary mirror). It is therefore an optical artifact that scientists are well aware of and is not particularly problematic for image analysis. The second is a series of concentric rings (even if they are not strictly circular) that run away from WR 140.
These are not an optical artifact but actually existing structures. Their shape derives from the dust surrounding the star (WR 140) due to the emission of elements (from hydrogen to helium and others) which are then “modeled” from a companion star that orbits around it creating a binary system. The distance from Earth is around 5500 light years and is located in the constellation of the Cygnus and will be published in the near future a scientific study which examines this celestial object with the new findings by the JWST (perhaps precisely because the structures are not spiraling but semi-circular). The image in this case was captured with the MIRI instrument, made in Europe, and using different filters such as F2100W, F1800W, F1000W for the different wavelengths.
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