2. NASA revealed the first five full-
color images and spectrographic
data from the world's most
powerful space telescope, the
James Webb Space Telescope, a
partnership with ESA (European
Space Agency), and CSA
(Canadian Space Agency). The
world got its first look at the full
capabilities of the mission at a
live event streamed from the
agency's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, on
3.
4. The event showcased these
targets:
Carina Nebula: A landscape speckled with
glittering stars and cosmic cliffs
Stephan’s Quintet: An enormous mosaic with a
visual grouping of five galaxies
Southern Ring Nebula: A nebula with rings of
gas and dust for thousands of years in all
directions
SMACS 0723: The deepest and sharpest
infrared image of the distant universe to date
WASP 96-b: A distinct signature of water in the
atmosphere of an exoplanet orbiting a distant
5. The Carina Nebula or Eta
Carinae Nebula
(catalogued as NGC
3372; also known as the
Great Carina Nebula) is a
large, complex area of
bright and dark
nebulosity in the
constellation Carina, and
it is located in the
Carina–Sagittarius Arm.
The nebula is
approximately 8,500
light-years (2,600 pc)
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals emerging stellar
nurseries and individual stars in the Carina Nebula that were
previously obscured
6. NGC 3132 (also known
as the Eight-Burst
Nebula, the Southern
Ring Nebula, vor
Caldwell 74) is a bright
and extensively
studied planetary
nebula in the
constellation Vela. Its
distance from Earth is
estimated at about 613
pc. or 2,000 light-
years.
Images of the Southern Ring Nebula reveal two stars close together within
the nebulosity, one of 10th magnitude, the other 16th. The central planetary
nebula nucleus (PNN) or white dwarf central star is the fainter of these two
7. Stephan’s Quintet is a visual
grouping of five galaxies of which
four form the first compact galaxy
group ever discovered. The group,
visible in the constellation Pegasus,
was discovered by Édouard Stephan
in 1877 at the Marseille
Observatory. The group is the most
studied of all the compact galaxy
groups. The brightest member of
the visual grouping (and the only
non-member of the true group) is
NGC 7320, which has extensive H II
regions, identified as red blobs,
Four of the five galaxies in Stephan’s Quintet form a physical
association, a true galaxy group, Hickson Compact Group 92,
and will likely merge with each other.
8. SMACS J0723.3-7327 is a
cluster of galaxies in the
southern constellation
Volans (the Flying Fish). This
is an area that hasn’t been
studied extensively, and the
JWST team wants to look
into a part of space where
there are a large number of
far away galaxies to see
what the JWST can produce.
This should be an exciting
image to see from the JWST.
This work is based on observations taken by the RELICS
Treasury Program (GO 14096) with the NASA/ESA HST, which
is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in
Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555
9. WASP-96 b is a world with a
sodium rich atmosphere. The
planet, located nearly 1,150 light-
years from Earth, orbits its star
every 3.4 days. It has about half the
mass of Jupiter, and its discovery
was announced in 2014.
In June 2022, the Webb Space
Telescope captured the distinct
signature of water, along with
evidence for clouds and haze, in
the atmosphere of this hot, puffy
gas giant planet, which orbits a
distant star.
10. Using observations from NASA’s
Transiting Exoplanet Survey
Satellite (TESS), backed up by
ground-based telescopes, an
international team led by the
University of Montreal announced
the discovery of a “super-Earth” –
a planet that is potentially rocky
like ours, but larger – orbiting a
red-dwarf star about 100 light-
years away. Further investigation
could shed light on an intriguing
possibility: that the planet might
be a “water world.” The discoverers: The international team that found the planet was led
by Charles Cadieux, a Ph.D. student at the University of Montreal.
11. TOI-1452 b makes a
complete orbit of its star
every 11 days – a “year” on
TOI-1452 b. But because
the red-dwarf star is
smaller and cooler than our
Sun, the planet receives a
similar amount of light
from its star as Venus does
from our Sun. Liquid water
might exist on the planet’s
surface, despite its close
The discoverers: The international team that found the planet was
led by Charles Cadieux, a Ph.D. student at the University of
Montreal.
Editor's Notes
The James Webb Space Telescope builds on the legacy of previous space-based telescopes to push the boundaries of human knowledge even further, to the formation of the first galaxies and the horizons of other worlds.
Explore the universe with Webb.
NASA released the first full-color images from the world’s largest and most powerful space telescope.
Images of “Cosmic Cliffs” showcase Webb’s cameras’ capabilities to peer through cosmic dust, shedding new light on how stars form
Objects in the earliest, rapid phases of star formation are difficult to capture, but Webb’s extreme sensitivity, spatial resolution, and imaging capability can chronicle these elusive events
Every image is a new discovery and each will give humanity a view of the universe that we’ve never seen before
As you can see the image, there is a big differences.
What we’re seeing is not just all the galaxies, but there are clusters that can be seen. If we are going to compare the two image, the image from the James webb space telescope is more detailed.
JWST primarily sees the universe in the infrared part of the spectrum, while Hubble sees primarily in the optical and ultraviolet wavelengths (though it has some infrared capability). JWST is a successor to Hubble, not a replacement. It is going to see the universe differently from Hubble and deliver science images that will expand our understanding of the universe.
The mirror on the JWST is also 6.25 times larger than the mirror on the Hubble Telescope. This will allow it to see deeper into space and resolve images with greater detail, in addition to seeing space in infrared.
During the live event streamed last July 12, 2022, here are the events they showcased:
The James Webb Telescope is one of humanity’s great engineering achievements.
NASA has announced the set of targets for the first science images to come from JWST. Hubble images all of the targets (except the exo-planet). Here’s a quick look at the expected targets from the perspective of Hubble.
https://www.therobotreport.com/nasa-releases-first-science-image-from-james-webb-space-telescope/
***pc-Parsecs
The Carina Nebula, with an overall diameter of more than 200 light-years, is one of the outstanding features of the Southern-Hemisphere portion of the Milky Way. The diameter of the Keyhole ring structure shown here is about 7 light-years. | Credit: Hubble Telescope – NASA JPL
This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.
Called the Cosmic Cliffs, Webb’s seemingly three-dimensional picture looks like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening. In reality, it is the edge of the giant, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, and the tallest “peaks” in this image are about 7 light-years high. The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble, above the area shown in this image.
A near-infrared image of the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula, captured by NASA’s Webb Telescope, has been mapped to a symphony of sounds. Musicians assigned unique notes to the semi-transparent, gauzy regions and very dense areas of gas and dust in the nebula, culminating in a buzzing soundscape.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-cosmic-cliffs-glittering-landscape-of-star-birth
Images of the Southern Ring Nebula reveal two stars close together within the nebulosity, one of 10th magnitude, the other 16th. The central planetary nebula nucleus (PNN) or white dwarf central star is the fainter of these two stars. | Credit: Hubble Telescope NASA
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-captures-dying-star-s-final-performance-in-fine-detail
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed details of the Southern Ring planetary nebula that were previously hidden from astronomers. Planetary nebulae are the shells of gas and dust ejected from dying stars.
Webb’s powerful infrared view brings this nebula’s second star into full view, along with exceptional structures created as the stars shape the gas and dust around them.
New details like these, from the late stages of a star’s life, will help us better understand how stars evolve and transform their environments.
These images also reveal a cache of distant galaxies in the background. Most of the multi-colored points of light seen here are galaxies – not stars.
The dimmer star at the center of this scene has been sending out rings of gas and dust for thousands of years in all directions, and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed for the first time that this star is cloaked in dust.
Webb will allow astronomers to dig into many more specifics about planetary nebulae like this one – clouds of gas and dust expelled by dying stars. Understanding which molecules are present, and where they lie throughout the shells of gas and dust will help researchers refine their knowledge of these objects.
This observation shows the Southern Ring Nebula almost face-on, but if we could rotate it to view it edge-on, its three-dimensional shape would more clearly look like two bowls placed together at the bottom, opening away from one another with a large hole at the center.
Four of the five galaxies in Stephan’s Quintet form a physical association, a true galaxy group, Hickson Compact Group 92, and will likely merge with each other. | Credit: Hubble Telescope, ESA NASA
In an enormous new image, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals never-before-seen details of galaxy group “Stephan’s Quintet”
The close proximity of Stephan’s Quintet gives astronomers a ringside seat to galactic mergers, interactions
Webb’s new image shows in rare detail how interacting galaxies trigger star formation in each other and how gas in galaxies is being disturbed
The image also shows outflows driven by a black hole in Stephan’s Quintet in a level of detail never seen before
Tight galaxy groups like this may have been more common in the early universe when superheated, infalling material may have fueled very energetic black holes
Stephan’s Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies, is best known for being prominently featured in the holiday classic film, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Today, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals Stephan’s Quintet in a new light. This enormous mosaic 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 information from Webb provides new insights into how galactic interactions may have driven galaxy evolution in the early universe.
https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-sheds-light-on-galaxy-evolution-black-holes
SMACS J0723.3-7327 cluster. | Credit: This work is based on observations taken by the RELICS Treasury Program (GO 14096) with the NASA/ESA HST, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555
The galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, bending the light of some of the most distant galaxies seen to date. These galaxies lie behind the cluster and appear in the JWST image as arcs of light around it.
Webb’s NIR (Near Infrared Cam has brought those distant galaxies into sharp focus — they have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features.
One of the goals in launching the James Webb Space Telescope was to peer into galaxies as they appeared when the universe was still in its infancy. Massive clusters of galaxies like SMACS 0723 allow astronomers to see some of these galaxies, whose light is magnified and bent by the sheer mass of the clusters in the foreground.
Located in the southern-sky constellation Phoenix, WASP-96b represents a type of gas giant that has no direct analog in our solar system. With a mass less than half that of Jupiter and a diameter 1.2 times greater, WASP-96 b is much puffier than any planet orbiting our Sun. And with a temperature greater than 1000°F, it is significantly hotter. WASP-96 b orbits extremely close to its Sun-like star, just one-ninth of the distance between Mercury and the Sun, completing one circuit every 3½ Earth-days.
While the Hubble Space Telescope has analyzed numerous exoplanet atmospheres over the past two decades, capturing the first clear detection of water in 2013, Webb’s immediate and more detailed observation marks a giant leap forward in the quest to characterize potentially habitable planets beyond Earth," the space agency said.
Webb's scientists plan to also point the powerful telescope at smaller, rocky, perhaps Earth-like worlds. There could be well over a trillion exoplanets in our galaxy alone. But we know vanishingly little about them.
Ocean planets are long imagined but difficult to confirm, and TOI-1452 b is no different. About 70% larger than Earth, and roughly five times as massive, its density could be consistent with having a very deep ocean. But more follow-up will be needed. The planet also might be a huge rock, with little or no atmosphere. It could even be a rocky planet with an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium.
Read First:
If TOI-1452 b were shown to be an ocean world, that ocean could be quite deep indeed. While Earth’s surface is 70% water, our sea of blue makes up less than 1% of Earth’s mass. One simulation of TOI-1452 b, created by computer modeling specialists on the discovery team, showed that water could make up as much as 30% of its mass. That proportion is comparable to watery moons in our solar system – Jupiter’s Ganymede and Callisto, or Saturn’s Titan and Enceladus – believed to hide deep oceans under shells of ice.
Fun facts: Planet TOI-1452 b seems perfectly positioned for further investigation by the James Webb Space Telescope, now delivering science observations from its perch about a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth. The planet’s distance of 100 light-years is, in astronomical terms, fairly close. Its relatively bright star should allow Webb to capture a spectrum of starlight shining through its atmosphere, a kind of fingerprint of atmospheric components. It also appears in a part of the sky, in the constellation Draco, that Webb can observe almost any time of year. Researchers on the discovery team say they will seek to schedule time on Webb to take a closer look.