Nasa on Tuesday revealed all of the first images of the most powerful space telescope ever designed, James-Webb, breathtaking shots of galaxies and nebulae marking the start of scientific operations, awaited for years by astronomers around the world.
Perhaps the most impressive for their detail and their magnificent contrasts of blue and orange: the images of two nebulae, gigantic clouds of gas and dust. The Carina Nebula, located about 7,600 light-years away, illustrates star formation. The snapshot shows hundreds of them that have never been seen before, but also galaxies in the background, and structures that we don’t even know what they are yet. Is the Southern Ring Nebula a so-called planetary nebula (although it has nothing to do with planets): it is a huge cloud of gas surrounding a dying star. Another target revealed: Stephan’s Quintet, a cluster of galaxies. Five are visible in total in this spectacular image, four of which interact with each other, in a veritable gravitational dance. Two are merging.
And you, what is your favorite photo of James Webb revealed today? #JWST pic.twitter.com/1JKEvzK2Ba
— CNES (@CNES) July 12, 2022
To read : For its 26th birthday, Hubble immortalizes the intriguing Bubble
The last cosmic object whose observation was published on Tuesday is an exoplanet, that is to say a planet in orbit around a star other than our Sun, one of the main lines of research of James-Webb. It was not actually photographed, but analyzed by spectroscopy, a technique used to determine the chemical composition of a distant object. In this case, WASP-96 b, a giant planet composed mainly of gas. Analysis of light passing through its atmosphere as it passes in front of its star has found the presence of water there, NASA said. James Webb’s predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, has detected water in the atmospheres of exoplanets in the past, but James-Webb’s observation is much more detailed.
“Each image is a new discovery,” NASA boss Bill Nelson said at the opening from the Goddard Space Center near Washington, where a crowd of American and European space agency officials and scientists had gathered for the event. Each offers “humanity a view of the Universe that we have never seen before”.
A 10 billion dollar gem
To read : 5 questions about James-Webb, the most powerful telescope ever built
One of the main missions of James-Webb, a jewel of engineering worth 10 billion dollars and the most powerful space telescope ever designed, is indeed the exploration of the very young Universe. This first demonstration was intended to give an overview of its capabilities in this area. James Webb had been launched into space about six months ago, on Christmas Day, from French Guiana by an Ariane 5 rocket. In project since the 1990s, it is stationed 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth.
The publication of these first images marks the beginning of many years of research, which are destined to transform our understanding of the Universe.