If you saw the full-colour images unveiled this week by Nasa without knowing what they were, you'd think they were created by a very clever AI.
The images were actually taken by the James Webb space telescope (JWST), and they are the highest-resolution pictures of the infrared universe ever captured. It took three decades to build the JWST, the most powerful telescope ever launched into space and a joint endeavor with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. The telescope was launched last year and it is now orbiting at 1m miles from Earth. Webb is bigger than the Hubble so that it can see fainter galaxies that are further away and the initial goal of the project was to see the first stars and galaxies formed following the big bang.
The first images released are simply mesmerizing as they show us spacescapes speckled with glittering stars, but also blue galaxies that contain stars, but very little dust; red objects enshrouded in thick layers of dust and green galaxies populated with hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds. One of the first images unveiled earlier on this week showed the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723.
Webb's image is approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length, but the picture of SMACS 0723 shows the galaxy cluster as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago, with many more galaxies in front of and behind the cluster, some seen when the universe was less than a billion years old. Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), which observes mid-infrared light, allows the telescope to peer through cosmic dust and bring distant galaxies into sharp focus, that's why we are able to see in the images very detailed elements.
Another image that looks simply sublime, shows a cloud-like landscape of ridges, peaks, mountains and valleys with glittering stars. This is the edge of a young star-forming region called NGC 3324 (located roughly 7,600 light-years away) in the Carina Nebula.
Captured in infrared light the image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth. The image is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively clear upper portion. Across both portions there is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes.
The upper portion of the image is blueish, and has wispy translucent cloud-like streaks rising from the nebula below. The orangish cloudy formation in the bottom half varies in density and ranges from translucent to opaque. The stars vary in color, the majority of which, have a blue or orange hue. The fog-like steam that appears to rise from the "mountains" is actually hot, ionized gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula due to the relentless radiation.
Two images show the Southern Ring planetary nebula (NGC 3132) and its pair of stars, as taken by two Webb's NIRCam and MIRI. The dimmer star, locked in orbit with the younger, brighter star, is dying, expelling gas and dust (that will dissipate into surrounding space) that Webb sees through in unprecedented detail.
There is also an image showing Stephan's Quintet, a group of five galaxies with bright cores and with different sizes, shapes and structure. This is Webb's largest image to date, covering about one-fifth of the Moon's diameter. It contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. The details of this image - clusters of millions of young stars and starburst regions of fresh star birth, tails of gas and dust - were never seen before.
For astrobiologists who study the origins, evolution, distribution and future of life in the universe, the JWSP reveals infinite possibilities of life beyond Earth, but it should also reveal infinite possibilities for creative minds, after all, images from the Hubble space telescope, Nasa aerial images and the COSMO Sky-Med satellites proved in previous posts great fashion inspirations.
The images were also released in July and that's perfect timing as we usually celebrate in this month the anniversary of the moon landing and the advent of Space Age fashion. The images shouldn't obviously just be inspiring for their colours, but should also prompt us to ponder about the universe and wonder if we are really alone.
The JWST spotted indeed the unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence for clouds on WASP-96 b, an exoplanet located in the southern-sky constellation Phoenix, 1,150 light-years away. This is a large, hot planet orbiting very close to its Sun-like star and hotter than any planet in our solar system.
There is only one detail about this story that may remind us that, well, we may be looking at the stars, but we are still lying in the proverbial gutter: the name of the telescope. James Webb, an American official and the second administrator of Nasa also served as the US undersecretary of state from 1949 to 1952 and was lined to anti-LGBTQ+ policies in the '50s and '60s (the Lavender Scare, a moral panic about homosexual people in the United States government which led to their mass dismissal from government service). Scientists requested Nasa to change the name of the telescope a while back, but the space agency dismissed the requests, casting the shadows of homophobic prejudice and bigotry on these wonderful images of sparkling stars pulsating in our glorious universe.
Comments