NASA has shared a “teaser” image ahead of the long-awaited launch of the first deep-space images from its James Webb space telescope next week.
The $ 10 billion (£ 7.4 billion) observatory was launched to look back in time to the dawn of the universe and to capture what happened just a couple of hundred million years ago. after the Big Bang.
Its first scientific-quality images will be released to the public on July 12, but the U.S. space agency has provided an engineering test photo as a small preview.
The image is the result of 72 exposures over 32 hours and shows a set of distant stars and galaxies.
It has some “rough” qualities, NASA said in a statement, but it is still “among the deepest images in the universe ever taken” and offers a “fascinating insight” into what will be revealed in the coming years. weeks, months and years.
“When this image was made, I was thrilled to see clearly the entire detailed structure of these faint galaxies,” said Neil Rowlands, a scientist in Webb’s thin guide sensor program at Honeywell Aerospace.
Exciting: NASA has shared a “teaser” image ahead of the long-awaited launch of the first deep-space images from its James Webb space telescope next week.
The $ 10 billion observatory was launched to look back in time to the dawn of the universe and to capture what happened just a couple of hundred million years after the Big Bang.
James Webb Space Telescope Instruments
NIRCam (Near InfraRed Camera) an infrared image from the edge of the visible through the near infrared
NIRSpec (Near InfraRed Spectrograph) will also perform spectroscopy in the same wavelength range.
MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument) will measure the average long wavelength range from 5 to 27 micrometers.
FGS / NIRISS (Fine Guidance Sensor and Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph), is used to stabilize the line of sight of the observatory during scientific observations.
Jane Rigby, Webb’s operations scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said that “the faintest spots in this image are exactly the types of faint galaxies Webb will study in his first year of scientific operations.” .
Astronomers have said earlier that the first images are sure to offer a long-awaited “wow” when they are presented next week.
NASA added that it will be “a unique moment for us all to stop and marvel at a sight that humanity has never seen before.”
The U.S. space agency, which is leading the Webb project, has previously released a set of engineering images to show that all hardware works as it should in the new astronomy space supertelescope.
These images showed slightly different views of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy in our Milky Way, but it is unclear what the first full-color images will capture.
Webb went through a six-month preparation period before he could begin scientific work, calibrating his instruments to their space environment and aligning their mirrors.
It was launched into space on December 25 last year and later launched into orbit a million miles from our planet.
Scientists expect the observatory, a replacement for the 32-year-old Hubble telescope, to be able to look back in time 13.5 billion years to a point in just 100-200 million years of the Big Bang.
It has an ambitious mission to study the early universe, find out how fast it is expanding, and analyze objects throughout the cosmos, from galaxies to exoplanets.
The telescope has a famous gold mirror that consists of 18 individual hexagonal segments, each controlled by seven actuators that allow precise movement and focus.
In February, NASA released the first images of James Webb. The result was a mosaic of 18-point images of randomly arranged stellar light (pictured), the product of Webb’s non-aligned mirror segments all reflecting light from the same star in its secondary mirror.
The images included a $ 10 billion (7.4 billion pound) selfie in the telescope’s primary mirror (pictured)
This mosaic of images was created by pointing the telescope at a bright, isolated star in the constellation Ursa Major known as HD 84406.
They have had to deploy slowly and meticulously over the past six months to prepare James Webb for his scientific mission.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson said last week that Webb could look more into space than any previous telescope.
“It will explore objects in the solar system and atmospheres of exoplanets orbiting other stars, giving us clues as to whether their atmospheres are potentially similar to ours,” he said.
“Can you answer some questions we have: where do we come from? What else is out there? Who are we?
“And of course he’ll answer some questions that we don’t even know what the questions are.”
Webb’s infrared capabilities allow it to look back in time to the Big Bang, which happened 13.8 billion years ago.
As the universe expands, the light from the first stars shifts from the ultraviolet and visible wavelengths at which it was emitted, to longer infrared wavelengths.
Astronomers will use Webb to observe the infrared universe, analyze the data collected, and publish scientific articles about his discoveries.
Beyond what is already planned for Webb, there are unexpected discoveries that astronomers cannot predict.
James Webb’s main mirror consists of 18 hexagonal segments of golden beryllium metal and measures 21 feet and 4 inches (6.5 meters) in diameter. It is supported by three shallow carbon fiber tubes, or struts, that extend from the large primary mirror.
Takeoff: NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Successfully Launched into Space on December 25
In 1990, when Hubble was launched, dark energy was completely unknown. It is now one of the most exciting areas of astrophysics.
Scientists are now eagerly awaiting what secrets James Webb might unlock and what that might mean for our understanding of the universe.
Described by NASA as the leading space science observatory of the next decade, Webb will primarily see the cosmos in the infrared spectrum, allowing it to look through the clouds of gas and dust where stars are born.
In comparison, its Hubble predecessor has operated primarily at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths since its launch in 1990.
Webb is about 100 times more powerful than Hubble, allowing it to observe objects at greater distances, therefore further back in time, than Hubble or any other telescope.
NASA likes to think of James Webb as a successor to Hubble instead of a replacement, as the two will work in tandem for a while.
Today, the first cosmological observations date back about 330 million years after the Big Bang, but with Webb’s capabilities, astronomers believe they will easily break the record.
James Webb began development in 1996 and was expected to launch in 2007, but a major redesign in 2005 re-launched it and a series of additional delays eventually brought it into orbit in late last year.
THE TELESCPI JAMES WEBB
The James Webb Telescope has been described as a “time machine” that could help unravel the secrets of our universe.
The telescope will be used to look back at the first galaxies born in the early universe more than 13.5 billion years ago and observe the sources of stars, exoplanets and even the moons and planets in our solar system.
The vast telescope, which has already cost more than $ 7 billion (£ 5 billion), is considered a successor to the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit.
The James Webb Telescope and most of its instruments have an operating temperature of about 40 Kelvin, about minus 387 Fahrenheit (minus 233 Celsius).
It is the largest and most powerful orbital space telescope in the world, capable of looking back 100 to 200 million years after the Big Bang.