NASA’s James Webb telescope will soon reveal “the deepest image of our universe ever taken.”
The space agency made the announcement ahead of the release next month of the first images of the $ 10 billion telescope that is currently 1.2 million kilometers directly “behind” the Earth as seen from the sun.
“This is further than humanity has ever looked at before, and we’re just beginning to understand what Webb can and will do,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said Wednesday at a live media event.
The telescope, which has taken 20 years to build, will look back to the time period just after the Big Bang in order to figure out some of the mysteries of how we got here.
“We’re in the middle of getting data to make history,” Nelson added.
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NASA’s James Webb telescope is set to unravel the mysteries of the universe when it publishes its first images in a few weeks. Above: The timeline shows the metric expansion of space, including the first stars, the development of galaxies and planets, and dark energy.
These initial images are based on only 120 hours of observation over five days.
It may seem strange to think of a telescope as a time machine, but that’s basically how it can work.
In space, distance is measured by how long it takes light to travel.
According to NASA, our nearest star is more than four light-years away, so when we look at this nearest star, we see it not as it is today, but as it was four years ago.
“One of the goals is to find the first galaxies to form in the universe just after the Big Bang,” said Jonathan Gardner, a senior scientist in the Webb project at NASA Goddard. Above: The graphic in the image shows a front view of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, including the primary mirror of the optical telescope element, the OTE secondary mirror, the parasol, and more.
Other galaxies are much further away.
The Virgin’s cluster of galaxies is the next largest collection of galaxies, about 60 million light-years from the Milky Way.
This means that the light we see today from the galaxies in the Virgo cluster began its path towards us at the same time as the era of the dinosaurs ended on Earth.
“There’s already an amazing science in the can and more are yet to be taken as we move forward,” Nelson said.
While NASA scientists did not say exactly what we will see when the images are released to the public, they did give some clues.
“One of the goals is to find the first galaxies to form in the universe just after the Big Bang,” said Jonathan Gardner, a senior scientist in the Webb project at NASA Goddard.
NASA also said the images will include the first spectrum of an exoplanet. The photo shows the rear view of NASA’s James Webb telescope, showing its solar panel, impulse flap, and spacecraft bus
In the six months since the telescope was launched on December 25, 2021, researchers and scientists have made sure that its massive mirrors are properly deployed and that all scientific instruments are aligned and working. The graph above shows the different sizes of known space telescopes
NASA also said the images will include the first spectrum of an exoplanet.
These spectra measure the amount of light emitted at certain wavelengths and can provide information about what a planet is made of and its formation in the history of the universe.
Space agency scientists pointed out that James Webb will produce more data and images in the coming months and years.
In the six months since the telescope was launched on December 25, 2021, researchers and scientists have made sure that its massive mirrors are properly deployed and that all scientific instruments are aligned and working.
“It’s bigger than Hubble, so it can see a dimmer light. Those first small, faint galaxies merged over and over again to become the largest we know now, including the our own Milky Way, ”Gardner added.
These initial images are based on only 120 hours of observation over five days. This NASA photo released on May 16, 2017 shows the main mirror of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope inside a clean room at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.
“We’ll also see an example of how galaxies interact and grow,” said Klaus Pontoppidan, a scientist on the Webb project, Space Telescope Science Institute. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope The primary mirror consists of 18 hexagonal segments made of metallic beryllium and gold-plated to capture faint infrared light.
“We’ll also see an example of how galaxies interact and grow,” said Klaus Pontoppidan, a scientist on the Webb project, Space Telescope Science Institute.
“But we’re just scratching the surface.”
“At first we only have a few days of observations. Waiting for years of observations. ‘
NASA will officially release the first images from the James Webb telescope on July 12 at 10:30 am EDT and this event will be covered by the Daily Mail.