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Space Technology Focus: The first science image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has dropped

The wait is over. The first science image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has dropped, and astronomers are in awe. US President Joe Biden released the historic image, which is the deepest astronomical image of the distant universe, during a press conference at the White House on Monday. NASA will release more images on July 12. The first image, carefully guarded against disclosure, shows the telescope’s transformative capabilities. It shows thousands of distant galaxies in the constellation Volans, fainter than any we’ve seen before, in a patch of sky no bigger than that covered by a grain of sand held at arm’s length.It shows “the oldest documented light in the history of the universe, from more than 13 billion  let me repeat that  13 billion years ago,” Biden said when he released the image. “It’s hard to even comprehend.

“I’m amazed,” says Vivian U, an astronomer at the University of California, Irvine. “I’m just going through the painting and figuring out what all the smudges are and why they’re there.Scientists expect Webb, the largest telescope ever launched into space, to revolutionize the study of space. The first batch of images to be released, including the deep-field image, was chosen to cover all of the observatory’s main science targets: the early universe, the evolution of galaxies and stars and planets beyond the Solar System.

Transformation telescope

Unlike the Hubble Space Telescopeone of the largest and best-known space telescopes—Webb primarily detects infrared wavelengths. By studying infrared light, it can penetrate the clouds of dust that obscure newborn stars and peer deeper into space than ever before. Webb “isn’t Hubble version 2 it’s really a very different telescope,” says ZoltLevay, a former astronomer and image processor who worked on Hubble images for decades. “It is the invisible light we are looking at. Galaxies that lie very far from Earth can only be seen in infrared wavelengths because the expansion of space has shifted their light from the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum into the infrared. Webb’s first deep-field image shows this effect dramatically around the galaxy cluster known as SMACS 0723, which lies about 4 billion light-years from Earth. The cluster’s gravity bends and magnifies the light of objects behind it, allowing astronomers to glimpse extremely distant objects.

“The things that catch my eye are the warped galaxies,” says Lisa Dang, an astronomer at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. “They look like no other galaxies we know.Webb’s first image shows galaxies that may date back more than 13 billion years, almost all the way back to the Big Bang that created the universe 13.8 billion years ago. It is reminiscent of several iconic deep-field images taken by Hubble. The first of these, made over 10 days over the Christmas holidays in 1995, revealed that a seemingly empty patch of sky was dotted with thousands of previously unseen galaxies. Compiling the first Webb image took just 12.5 hours, compared to the weeks it took Hubble to observe other deep fields.

Webb also specializes in spectroscopy, the study of how light of different wavelengths interacts with matter. The infrared spectra of astronomical objects that Webb will produce can reveal what the objects are chemically made of – to a degree that images cannot. “That’s where some of the really exciting science happens,” says Elizabeth Kessler, a historian at Stanford University in California who has studied the aesthetic impact of Hubble images.

Webb’s first science images came as something of a catharsis for the telescope project, which had suffered years of delays and billions in cost overruns. Originally envisioned in 1989, Webb ended up costing NASA nearly $10 billion. It is the most complex space observatory ever built. Its 6.5 meter wide primary mirror had to be lowered in the folded state and then opened like a butterfly spreading its wings through a series of anxious maneuvers. Engineers had to test its tennis-court-sized sunshield—made of thin layers of aluminum-coated polymer film—several times to make sure it would unfold properly and then protect the telescope’s instruments in the deep freeze of space.

NASA partners, the European and Canadian Space Agencies, contributed a total of approximately $1 billion more to make the telescope a reality. Webb was finally launched in December 2021 and spent six months preparing its instruments for science; it is expected to operate for at least 20 years.Webb is named after James E. Webb, who directed NASA during the height of the Apollo lunar exploration program in the 1960s. Some astronomers have called for the telescope to be renamed, given that James Webb held a prominent leadership role at the US State Department in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when the department was at the forefront of the US government’s efforts to identify and deport gays. and lesbian employees. NASA said it had no evidence to warrant changing the name of the telescope. Its acting chief historian, along with another historian, are continuing to research the matter and are expected to report their findings soon.

Webb’s first images represent just a fraction of the science it will enable. Only 120 hours of observations have been taken over the last few weeks. Upcoming studies include surveys of the planets Jupiter and Saturn, small faint stars known as red dwarfs, distant galaxies colliding with each other, and hot rocky planets around other stars. U, which has observing time on Webb, already expects to get its first data from the telescope on Thursday. That’s when Webb’s team will upload the galaxy merger observations to a website for her and her colleagues to access.Levay remembers working on some of the most iconic Hubble image releases, such as the release of images taken after astronauts visited the Earth-orbiting telescope to upgrade its instruments. “You know the world is watching you and you’d better deliver,” he says. Webb seems to have done just that. “It’s working better than I think anyone expected,” says Levay. “And that’s great

Source Journal Reference:  Alexandra Witze, Landmark Webb telescope releases first science image — astronomers are in awe, Nature news (2022), https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01906-6

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