On Tuesday, NASA and US President Joe Biden presented the first historic images from the James Webb Space Telescope. One of the five photographs shows a collection of stars and galaxies. NASA chief Bill Nelson said that at least one of the faint, older beams of light appearing in the “background” of the photo dates back more than 13 billion years. – This is the deepest and most detailed picture of the Universe that has been taken so far (…) It shows the light of galaxies, which took many billions of years to reach us – emphasized NASA.
– We saw what we had not seen before. The telescope is designed to look into space at infrared wavelengths that the human eye cannot register. And to see things that are hidden from him. All these photos are beautiful, they must be seen – encouraged TOK FM, dr hab. Pawe³ Pietrukowicz from the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw.
As the scientist said in an interview with Miko³aj Lizut, the Webb telescope showed us objects almost as old as the universe. – Approx. The Big Bang occurred 13.8 billion years ago, then the first stars and galaxies began to form. It happened a good few hundred million years later. It was these first galaxies that the Webb telescope allowed us to see, he explained.
Thanks to the new device – as he said – we can observe the “stellar nursery”, which was not possible before. – We didn’t know much about the start of star formation, because it had been hidden in the dust clouds until now. It is from it and the gas that stars are born, and gravity causes these clouds to condense, contract, rotate faster and faster, and something denser is formed in their centers. Nuclear reactions arise that make it possible for such stars to live for millions or even billions of years. Now this “stellar nursery” will be revealed to us – explained Dr. Pietrukowicz.
According to the scientist, the Holy Grail, the discovery of which could be helped by the James Webb telescope, would be finding life forms in the cosmos. – We would like to find them as close as possible. But we will also try to find life on distant planets. That would be the most interesting thing: finding such gases that would clearly indicate that we are dealing with life. What would that gas be? It is said, for example, about methane, which is produced by us, among others by animals. But most of all it is about oxygen, which is produced by plants – said TOK FM.
“Poles can also use the Webb telescope”
Paweł Pietrukowicz pointed out that the Webb telescope is the largest instrument designed to observe the sky. – It has a mirror 6.5 meters, and its predecessor – the Hubble telescope – was 2.5 meters. The new telescope was raised up to four times further than the Moon, and it was done by a European rocket, so the European Space Agency contributes to this project. As Poland is its member, we can also use this telescope, he said.
As he said, we should keep our fingers crossed for the success of this mission, because if the telescope breaks down, it cannot be saved. – Man will not get there and fix nothing. There is currently no rocket that could transport him there. Admittedly, there are some possible faults with the telescope, but it remains to be seen how it works. We already know that since the launch of the telescope – in December 2021 – fine grains of sand have hit it several times. As they are for a collision at very high speed, there is probably some damage. But still, I’m in good spirits. If nothing bigger happens, I think that two or three decades will work – summed up the expert from the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Warsaw.
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