Now, NASA has just revealed five more stunning color images taken by the most ambitious telescopes ever built by mankind. “You haven’t seen anything yet,” said Gregory L. Robinson, James Webb Space Telescope Program Director, before the unveiling. And boy was he right! The images have naturally been colored during processing, so although they may not be accurate to the naked eye, they still represent real data and make it easier for scientists to distinguish and understand the complex structures depicted. These improvements are purely for science. Amazingly, what we see here are five days of images from the telescope!! They are the culmination of decades of hard work by many people around the world and are just the beginning. So feast your eyes on these incredible visions that are clearer and more detailed than ever before.
The Southern Ring Nebula
What you can see below are spectacular death waves from the Southern Ring Nebula – shivering shells of gas from dying stars. The Southern Ring Nebula, AKA NGC 3132, is about 2,000 light-years away and is a beautiful, bright blob in the southern constellation of Sagittarius. There are two stars in its center, clearly visible in the image on the right below. The faintest is a white dwarf. the core of a dead, collapsed star that, during its lifetime, had a mass up to eight times the mass of the Sun. It reached the end of its life, shed its outer layers, and the core collapsed into a superdense object: up to 1.4 times the mass of the Sun, packed into an object the size of Earth. Although it still glows, it is only from residual heat. In billions of years, it will cool into a dark, dead object. For the first time, JWST managed to reveal this dust-covered star. The brightest star is in an early stage of its evolution and will one day explode in its own nebula. (NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI) At left, Webb’s near-infrared camera (NIRCam) reveals bubbly orange hydrogen from newly formed expansions as well as a blue haze of hot ionized gas from the remnant heated core of the dead star. On the right, in the image taken by the Webb Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), the blue hydrocarbons form similar patterns to the orange in the previous image because they are concentrated on the surface of the hydrogen dust rings. “Webb will allow astronomers to dig into much more detail about planetary nebulae like this one,” explains NASA. “Understanding which molecules are present and where they are in the shells of gas and dust will help researchers improve their knowledge of these objects.” To provide context on the new level of detail, here’s Hubble’s view of the Southern Ring Nebula, taken in 1998. (Hubble) Read more about the image of the Southern Ring Nebula.
The deep field image
We’ve already seen the deep-field image of SMACS 0723, filled to the brim with galaxies frozen in time billions of years ago. Today, Webb’s team provided more information about the image. Why do some of the galaxies in this image look bent? The combined mass of this cluster of galaxies acts as a “gravitational lens”, bending light rays from more distant galaxies behind it, magnifying them. The light from the most distant galaxy here traveled 13.1 billion years to us. pic.twitter.com/XaZkngQqvg — NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) July 12, 2022 Read more about the Deep Field image.
Exoplanet WASP-96b
One of JWST’s targets was the exoplanet WASP-96b, a hot puffy world so close to its star that it orbits just 3.5 Earth days. It orbits a Sun-like star 1,150 light-years away. WASP-96b has less than half the mass of Jupiter and 1.2 times the diameter, so it’s much more inflated than any gas giant we have in our solar system – and much hotter, too, at more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit (538 degrees Celsius). What’s exciting is that JWST was able to detect evidence of clouds and haze in the exoplanet’s atmosphere, capturing “the distinct signature of water.” (NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI) By observing tiny dips in the brightness of specific colors of light over a 6.4-hour period on June 21, JWST was able to reveal the presence of specific gas molecules around the planet. This is the most detailed observation of an exoplanet’s atmosphere ever obtained. How does it work; When an exoplanet passes between us and its host star – what’s known as a transit – a small, very small amount of the star’s light will have to pass through the star’s atmosphere, if any. Scientists can examine the spectrum of this light to look for brighter or dimmer wavelengths than light that has been absorbed and re-emitted by elements in the atmosphere. This can tell us what those elements are. What’s interesting is that previous observations suggested that WASP-96b had a clear, cloudless atmosphere. So we still have a lot to learn about this strange exoplanet. It’s not the first time we’ve detected water in an exoplanet’s atmosphere – the Hubble Space Telescope did so in 2013 – but Webb’s detection is faster and far more detailed, and only hints at the possibilities of what lies ahead for our understanding of alien worlds. Read more about WASP-96b observations.
Stephan’s Quintet
Stefan’s Quintet is a group of galaxies locked in a cosmic dance of collisions and new stars exploding into existence (the red areas in the image below). The new JWST image of Stephan’s Quintet is monstrously massive, covering an area of the sky one-fifth the diameter of the Moon (as seen from Earth) and containing more than 150 million pixels. It was built from around 1,000 image files – and helps us understand how these dramatic galactic interactions shape the evolution of galaxies. (NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI) In the star galaxy in this image, NGC 7319, scientists spotted the signatures of material swirling around a supermassive black hole. The light energy it emits from all the material it swallows is 40 billion times greater than that of our Sun. While five galaxies are visible, only four of them are actually close to each other on the left, NGC 7320, is much closer to us at 40 million light-years away, while the others are about 290 million light-years away. You can compare the JWST image with the 2009 Hubble view. Webb’s mosaic is his largest image to date, covering an area of the sky 1/5 the diameter of the Moon (as seen from Earth). It contains more than 150 million pixels and is made of about 1,000 image files. Compare the new image with @NASAHubble’s 2009 view, shown here! pic.twitter.com/SbulK1GIjN — NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) July 12, 2022 Read more about the image here.
The Carina Nebula
Last, but by no means least, is the beautiful Carina Nebula as we’ve never seen it before – complete with hundreds of brand new stars. This incredible image shows the edge of a nearby star-forming region, also called NGC 3324. The stunning detail in the JWST infrared image provides an amazing sense of depth and texture, and there are many mysterious new structures to explore. (NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI) Known as the “Cosmic Rocks,” the tallest peak in this image is a staggering 7 light-years high, with blue ionized gas being vaporized by intense radiation. The top is where newborn stars explode into life, and the stellar wind they produce pushes orange gas away, which in turn also ignites new stars or can destroy them before they form. What is even more incredible is that we are all made up of the same stars that we can see in this image. Read more about the Carina Nebula image.
