The James Webb Space Telescope has made it possible for astronomers to see things they cannot explain.
At least not yet.
in new research(Opens in a new tab) From Webb – the most powerful space observatory ever built – astronomers have spent 50 hours looking into the deepest universe, discovering some of the first galaxies ever to have formed, more than 13 billion years ago. Capturing such a rich cosmic landscape, with the tiniest objects humans have ever seen, is an extraordinary feat. But the data also reveals that these ancient galaxies were releasing huge amounts of energy into space – 10 Kali More than scientists expected.
The “main” question is How These fledgling galaxies are accomplishing just that, Pablo J. Perez Gonzalez, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrobiology in Spain, said in a statement. Weird black hole? live star? Pérez-González is the author of the research, which is published in a scientific journal Astrophysics Journal Letter.
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The Webb Telescope has made an unprecedented discovery in the Orion Nebula
The Webb telescope is a very sensitive instrument, with the ability to pick up some of the most distant light in space. This is because Webb saw a type of light we cannot see, called infrared, which travels at longer wavelengths than visible light. Most importantly, ancient light expands as the universe expands, meaning it has changed and “red-shifted.”
Thus, the powerful Webb could see the energy created by the early galaxies. Choose an astronomer 44 galaxies most likely formed during the first 500 million years of the universe’s life. Initially, this energy was emitted as ultraviolet light, but has also expanded to infrared.
In the image below, released by the researchers, you can see:
Left: Deep universe view with a clear spiral galaxy in the foreground and a large number of older galaxies in the distance. Almost all of these objects are galaxies.
Right: Zoomed view of three galaxies that are strongly redshifted releasing unexpected amounts of energy. “They formed in the first 200 to 500 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was 1-5 percent of its present age.” [age]A statement about the research explaining.
An ancient galaxy captured by the MIRI Deep Imaging Survey’s James Webb Space Telescope.
Credit: Pierluigi Rinaldi / Rafael Navarro Carrera / Pablo J. Perez Gonzalez
The electromagnetic spectrum shows all the wavelengths of light, such as visible light, infrared, ultraviolet, and so on.
Credit: NASA
Astronomers have simulated, using advanced computing, how the universe evolved over billions of years, beginning with the formation of the first stars and galaxies, eventually creating the organic matter essential to life. But none of the simulations predicted such strong emission of ultraviolet energy. What might explain that?
They can be young and energetic stars, hotter than our average Sun, and radiating vast amounts of energy into space. or, It is possible that this primordial light was produced by supermassive black holes, which are hundreds of thousands to billions of times the mass of the Sun and are usually found in the centers of galaxies, such as our Milky Way.
But this begs another question: “Where did this supermassive black hole come from?” asked Perez Gonzales.
“Right now, JWST is giving us more questions than answers, but this new line of research is exciting.”
He wondered how these gigantic objects – with gravity so strong that not even light could escape – formed so quickly, so early in the history of the universe. Most black holes form from exploding stars, but could these black holes have formed in another way? lots of questions.
“Right now, JWST is giving us more questions than answers, but this new line of research is exciting,” the researchers said.
Stay tuned for more Webb answers and questions.
Artist’s illustration of the James Webb Space Telescope orbiting the Sun one million miles from Earth.
Credit: NASA
The powerful capabilities of the Webb telescope
The Webb Telescope – a science collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency – is designed to probe the deepest universe and reveal unprecedented insights into the early universe. But it also has its eye on the interesting planets in our galaxy, and even the planets in our solar system.
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Here’s how Webb accomplished things like no other, and likely will for decades:
Giant mirror: Webb’s mirror, which catches light, measures over 21 feet. It is two and a half times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope mirror. Catching more light allowed Webb to see more ancient and distant objects. As shown above, telescopes stare at stars and galaxies that formed more than 13 billion years ago, just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang.
“We’re about to see the first stars and galaxies that ever formed,” Jean Creighton, astronomer and director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, told Mashable in 2021.
infrared display: Unlike Hubble, which sees most of the light visible to us, Webb is primarily an infrared telescope, meaning it sees light in the infrared spectrum. It allows us to see more about the universe. Longer infrared wavelength(Opens in a new tab) visible light, so that light waves pass more efficiently through cosmic clouds; Light doesn’t often collide with these solid particles and gets scattered. Ultimately, Webb’s infrared vision can penetrate places that Hubble cannot.
“That lifts the veil,” Creighton said.
Staring at a distant exoplanet: Telescope Webb He brings special equipment called a spectrophotometer(Opens in a new tab) It will revolutionize our understanding of this distant world. The instrument can decipher molecules (such as water, carbon dioxide and methane) present in the atmospheres of distant exoplanets – whether they be gas giants or smaller rocky worlds. Webb will look at exoplanets in the Milky Way. Who knows what we will find.
“We may learn things we never thought possible,” said Mercedes Lopez-Morales, an exoplanet researcher and astrophysicist at the University of California, San Francisco. Center for Astrophysics – Harvard and Smithsonian(Opens in a new tab)for Mashable in 2021.
Astronomers have discovered an interesting chemical reaction on a planet 700 light years away, and observatories have started their search for one of the most anticipated places in the universe: a rocky, Earth-sized planet in the TRAPPIST solar system.
2023-07-01 10:59:11
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