NASA has released an image of distant galaxies as they were 13 billion years ago, the first vision of the most powerful telescope ever launched into space that promises to reshape our understanding of the dawn of the universe.
The small portion of the universe, called SMACS 0723, has been captured in great detail by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), showing the light of many different bright galaxies, among the oldest in the universe. Joe Biden, who unveiled the image at a White House event, called the moment “historic” and said it provides “a new window into the history of our universe.”
“It’s hard to understand,” the U.S. president said. “It simply came to our notice then. It is a historic moment for science and technology, for the United States and for all of humanity. “
NASA administrator Bill Nelson said the image showed the light of galaxies tilted around other galaxies, traveling for billions of years before reaching the telescope. “We are looking back more than 13 billion years,” he said, adding that more images to be released by the space agency will go back further, about 13.5 billion years, near the estimated starting point of the universe itself. “We’re going back almost to the beginning,” he said.
The launch of the image is a preview of a series of high-resolution color images from the James Webb space telescope that NASA will show on Tuesday. They will include “the deepest image of our universe ever taken,” according to Nelson.
Technicians raising the mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope in 2017. Photo: Laura Betz / AP
Experts have said that the telescope, three decades in the making and launched last year, could revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos by providing detailed infrared images of the universe, detailing galaxies as they appeared 13 billion years ago. .
The $ 10 billion telescope is able to look into the atmospheres of exoplanets and observe some of the oldest galaxies in the universe using a system of lenses, filters and prisms to detect signals in the infrared spectrum, which is invisible. to the human eye. The system has so far “worked perfectly,” according to Marcia Rieke, a professor of astronomy at the University of Arizona.
“Webb can look back in time just after the big bang looking for galaxies so far away that light has taken many billions of years to reach from these galaxies to ourselves,” said Jonathan Gardner, senior project assistant scientist from NASA. during a recent press conference. “Webb is bigger than Hubble so it can see fainter galaxies that are further away.”
The telescope, which is a joint effort with the European Space Agency, has been in development since the mid-1990s and was finally launched into space in December. It is described as the most powerful telescope ever sent into space and is currently about a million miles from Earth, performing its task of scanning ancient galaxies.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris show the first infrared images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Photography: NASA TV / AFP / Getty Images
The initial goal of the project was to see how the first stars and galaxies formed after the big bang, observing how “the universe lights up for the first time,” as Eric Smith, a Webb program scientist and scientist, said. from NASA. The telescope should be considered “one of the great engineering achievements of mankind,” said Kamala Harris, vice president of the United States.
“The whole observatory is working incredibly well,” said Gillian Wright, director of the UK Astronomy Technology Center in Edinburgh, also principal investigator of the medium infrared instrument (MIRI) at JWST.
“It’s hard to understand how fantastic it’s turned out to be. It’s absolutely amazing.”
NASA said Webb has five initial cosmic targets for observation, including the Carina Nebula, a kind of celestial nursery where stars form. The nebula is about 7,6,000 light-years away and is home to many huge stars, several times larger than the sun.
Other areas of attention include WASP-96 b, a giant planet outside our solar system that is made mostly of gas; the southern ring nebula, an expanding cloud of gas surrounding a dying star 2,000 light-years from Earth, and the Stephan quintet, notable for being the first group of compact galaxies discovered in 1877. Images of these targets will be revealed by NASA on Tuesday.
“It’s exciting to see the fantastic image of the James Webb Space Telescope published today,” said Richard Ellis, a professor of astrophysics at University College London who was part of the committee that first conceived the telescope.
“Because we ourselves are made of the material synthesized in the stars over the last 13 billion years, JWST has the unique ability to go back to our own origins in this extraordinary universe. Everyone can participate in this amazing adventure.”