Humanity’s gaze into the cosmos has been forever broadened by two pioneering eyes: Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope. Space telescopes pierce the Earth’s distorting atmosphere, granting us crystal-clear views of the cosmos unseen from the ground. They unveil the universe’s deepest secrets, from primordial galaxies to exoplanet formations, shaping our understanding of space and our place within it. Hubble’s vision, while magnificent, was limited.
Like peering through a dusty window, it could only see visible and ultraviolet light. Compared to images from the Hubble Space Telescope, images taken by the Webb, launched in 2021, shed light on the finer details of the universe. The Webb images of distant galactic clusters, galaxies, stars, black holes, supernovae, and interstellar gas clouds in the universe have given new enthusiasm to the scientific world.
The James Webb Space Telescope mission has four primary goals:
- first, to peer back to the dawn of time and detect the first galaxies or luminous objects born after the Big Bang.
- Second, it aims to trace the evolution of galaxies over billions of years, understanding how they’ve transformed from nascent wisps to majestic spirals and ellipticals.
- Third, Webb will observe the lifecycle of stars, from their fiery birth within cosmic clouds to the formation of planetary systems.
- Finally, it will scrutinize the properties of planets, both within our solar system and beyond, searching for signatures of potential life.
Through Space Explorers Workshop “Earths Eye in Space”, at Space India Students investigate the highs and lows of the iconic Hubble expedition and learn new facts about the telescope, such as how it delivers black and white photographs of the universe that are later converted into colorful views by scientists on Earth. They realize that many devices are required to guide the space telescope, store photographs, and transmit them back to Earth. They grasp the importance and location of each component.
JWST is equipped with many advanced instruments, such as a Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), which is an infrared imager. It will detect the first light-emitting galaxies and star clusters that formed in the universe after the Big Bang. NIRSPEC– a near-infrared spectrometer, enable large-scale spectroscopic surveys of astronomical objects with a particular focus on the study of distant galaxies. MIRI is a versatile, mid-infrared instrument that provides imaging, coronagraphy, and integral field spectroscopy. It will collect the information needed to study every step of the formation of the planets in our solar system, from the highly illusory early universe. The Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS) helps precisely focus the observation on a specific spot. That way it gets high-quality images.
The major discoveries of JWST encompass an exoplanet orbiting the star HIP 65426, 385 light-years away was discovered. It orbits its parent star at a distance more than twenty times the mass of Jupiter and the distance from the Sun to Neptune. This planet, known as HIP 65426 b, was formed two million years ago.
JWST observed a gravitational lensing phenomenon, a galaxy with a supernova appears in three different places due to the gravitational pull of the galaxy cluster RXJ 2129 in the constellation Aquarius. This is caused by gravitational lensing, introduced by Albert Einstein. When light passes near other objects in the universe, the path of light is bent due to the influence of gravity. This happens because spacetime itself bends near objects with more mass.
JWST identified a comet in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars that has water in its atmosphere. The discovery of water vapor in the comet 238P/Read suggests that large amounts of water formed in solid form on asteroids and comets during the formation of the Solar System. This is a finding that lends credence to the theory that water on Earth was created by comets. This discovery lends credence to the theory that Earth’s water was created by comets.
Another significant finding of JWST is JD1, a faint galaxy that existed when the Universe was a few billion years old, was discovered 1,330 million light-years away. In addition, 717 faint, old galaxies were found in the region of the Ursa Major star cluster and near the Fornax cluster. These were formed between 37 crore and 65 crore years after the creation of the universe.
JWST’s NIRCam revealed an early star, Earendel, the most distant star ever detected! The star Earendel, 12 billion light-years away, formed about 1 billion years after the Big Bang that gave birth to the universe. Earendel is a binary star. Earendel’s continued observations will yield new information about the conditions under which stars clustered to form galaxies after the Big Bang.
So, the Webb telescope is basically a time machine, a cosmic detective. We can hope that Webb may even find signs of life on other planets, such as water or pizza!
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