NASA/ESA/CSAThe published images
NOS Nieuws•vandaag, 21:45
The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a new image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. The images have been published on the occasion of an anniversary: exactly one year ago, the first images of the instrument were released.
The telescope is a collaboration between the American NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian CSA. The instrument cost more than 10 billion euros and was launched into space years later than planned with a European Ariane 5 rocket, a type of rocket that made its very last flight last week. It is the largest and most powerful telescope ever built.
The new photo, published today, shows dozens of stars “being born.” These are fifty baby stars that are about 390 light-years from Earth in the so-called Rho Ophiuchi clouds. A light year is about 9.46 trillion kilometers. The area is full of hot gases, hydrogen and cocoons full of dust.
“Our own Sun also went through this phase a long time ago, and now we have the technology to see the beginning of another star,” scientist Klaus Pontoppidan of the US Space Telescope Science Institute said in a statement from NASA.
An overview of special photos from the James Webb Space Telescope:
NASA
Images of an upcoming supernova (an exploding star)
NASA
Saturn with its rings and three moons
NASA
The galaxy NGC 3256, about 100 million light-years from Earth
NASA
The Carina Nebula
NASA
The planet Uranus with rings
NASA
A new star is forming, some 460 light-years from Earth
NASA, ESA, CSA, at STScI
Stephan’s Quintet, a number of galaxies that will merge
So the Webb telescope has been ‘loose’ for some time now and the first images were a kind of “eye-opener” for astronomer Rens Waters of Radboud University in Nijmegen. “It’s like sitting in a dark room. At once the light goes on and then you see: oh, is it like that?”, he says in the radio program NOS With an eye to tomorrow.
The telescope actually consists of a very large mirror. “And the bigger the mirror, the sharper you can see,” says Waters. “But also: the larger the mirror, the more light it can collect. The fainter the objects you can see with it, they will automatically be further away. You look deeper and sharper into the universe. And we want really like to understand: how did the universe actually come into being after the big bang?”
Dutch input
The Webb can map all kinds of objects very far from Earth very well, according to Waters. This concerns, for example, planets outside our own solar system, so-called exoplanets.
“We really want to understand whether the planets we have here are very common, so you have to compare them to what planets around other stars look like. We can now map that in incredible detail for the first time with Webb. the planets have an atmosphere, what does that atmosphere contain and are they similar in composition to the atmospheres of our planets?”
Waters may also use the Webb himself. The Netherlands is a member of a large group of countries that have contributed to the space telescope. That does not mean that he can actually look ‘through the telescope’. “It all goes through a big NASA control center. But you make a proposal for using the telescope. Then there’s a committee that reviews that and if you’re very lucky you get selected and then the telescope does the observing out.”
This month, Waters’ team has 35 hours to use the Webb telescope. That time is used to look at the sulfur dioxide content in the atmospheres of three exoplanets. Sulfur is one of the six essential elements for life on Earth.
2023-07-12 19:45:18
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