Posted: 18:24, July 8, 2022 | Updated: 18:27, July 8, 2022
NASA has revealed that the James Webb Telescope will target multiple spectacular cosmic objects – including distant star nurseries, a giant planet outside our solar system and a cluster of galaxies 290 million light-years away – before releasing its first images.
The space agency lists five main targets for the $10 billion telescope’s first set of color science images released Tuesday, July 12 at 10:30 a.m. ET. EDT. “Even after working on the program for many years, I’m just as excited as everyone who awaits the release of the first beautiful color images and data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope – a bold effort in collaboration with the European and Canadian space agencies,” says Eric Smith, a Webb program scientist at NASA who has worked with the telescope team since its inception in the mid-1990s. Scroll down for videos “The James Webb Space Telescope will give us a fresh and powerful set of eyes to examine our universe,” said Webb program scientist Eric Smith. Pictured is the Carina Nebula as seen by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope “The James Webb Space Telescope will give us a fresh and powerful set of eyes to examine our universe,” he adds in a statement. The targets were selected by a panel of representatives from NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency and the Space Telescope Science Institute. The Carina Nebula is one of the brightest and largest nebulae in space, located about 7,600 light-years away in the southern constellation called Carina. Nebulae are stellar nurseries where stars are born, and this one hosts many giant stars, including some larger than the sun. The Southern Ring Nebula, pictured above, is nicknamed the ‘Eight-Burst’ because it appears to be a figure-8 when viewed through some telescopes The Southern Ring Nebula, also known as the “Eight Bursts” nebula, is a planetary nebula – basically an exploding cloud of gas surrounded by a dying star. According to NASA, it’s nearly half a light-year in diameter and about 2,000 light-years away from Earth. WASP-96 b, pictured above, is a gas giant exoplanet orbiting a G-type star. This planet is located 1,150 light-years from Earth and orbits its star every 3.4 days Next on the list is WASP-96 b, which is a giant planet outside our solar system composed mostly of gas. This planet is located 1,150 light-years from Earth and orbits its star every 3.4 days. WASP-96 b is about half the mass of Jupiter and was discovered in 2014. The galaxy group Stephan’s Quintet, pictured above, is part of the James Webb Telescope’s list of targets for the first images to be released next week The Stephano Quintet is located in the constellation Pegasus and is known to be the first compact galaxy group ever discovered in 1787. Four of the five galaxies in the quintet are locked in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters, NASA notes. Regarding SMACS 0723, the ultimate target, NASA says: “Massive galaxy clusters in the foreground magnify and distort the light of objects behind them, allowing a deep-field view of both extremely distant and intrinsically faint galaxy populations. “What questions might Webb’s observations raise now that will turn our curiosity to things unimaginable?” asks Smith. “We will soon begin to know how Webb will transform our understanding of the universe.”
JAMES WEBB’S TELESCOPE
The James Webb Telescope has been described as a ‘time machine’ that could help unlock the secrets of our universe. The telescope will be used to look back to the first galaxies born in the early universe more than 13.5 billion years ago and observe the sources of stars, exoplanets and even the moons and planets of our solar system. The massive telescope, which has already cost more than $7bn (£5bn), is seen as a successor to the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope The James Webb Telescope and most of its instruments have an operating temperature of about 40 Kelvin – about minus 387 Fahrenheit (minus 233 Celsius). It is the largest and most powerful orbiting space telescope in the world, capable of looking back 100-200 million years after the Big Bang.
