Our Last View Of The Universe Before The Big Jwst Reveal

This image, of a dusty region of the Large Magellanic Cloud, was taken with JWST’s MIRI instrument at a wavelength of 7.7 microns. By measuring the Universe at unprecedented wavelengths, depths, sensitivities and resolutions, JWST can reveal details never before revealed. From dust to stars to black holes and even possible biosignatures, its capabilities could show us a Universe we never expected to find. (Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI) Its initial five goals will change astrophysics forever. The Pillars of Creation, seen in visible (L) and infrared (R) views as imaged by Hubble, may be one of JWST’s first science targets, but they will not be part of the results of the first launch. When seen by JWST, the new telescope will reveal features within it with a precision and wavelength range never seen before, opening up a huge possibility for new, surprising discoveries. (Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA); NASA/STScI) Here’s what was known before the big JWST reveal. The Carina Nebula, as seen with a wide field of visible light. Eta Carinae and the Keyhole Nebula are just left of center, while NGC 3324 is in the upper right. Although most of the interesting features are contained within ~100 light-years or so, the nebula itself spans over 250 light-years. (Credit: Harel Boren/pbase) 1.) Carina Nebula. Inside the stormy Carina Nebula lies “Mystic Mountain”. This three-light-year cosmic peak, imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 in 2010, is composed mostly of dust and gas and shows signs of intense star-forming activity. The colors in this composite image correspond to the glow of oxygen (blue), hydrogen and nitrogen (green), and sulfur (red). (Credit: NASA, ESA and M. Livio and the Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)) This star-forming hotbed spans 250 light-years. With more than 2 decades of Hubble observations, including in ultraviolet light, astronomers recently revealed some striking features, including streaks (in blue) emerging from the lower left lobe. These streaks are created when the star’s light rays penetrate the clumps of dust scattered along the surface of the bubble. Where the UV light hits the dense dust, it leaves a long, thin shadow that extends beyond the lobe into the surrounding gas. (Credit: NASA, ESA, N. Smith (University of Arizona, Tucson) and J. Morse (BoldlyGo Institute)) It contains Eta Carinae: our closest rogue supernova. The Carina Nebula, seen in visible (top) and near-infrared (bottom) light, has been imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope at a range of different wavelengths, allowing these two very different views to be constructed. Any dusty star-forming regions will have spectacularly different characteristics revealed by looking at them at different wavelengths of light, and this should set the stage for what JWST can and should do. (Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO team) We’ve seen its infrared components before. This image of the Carina Nebula, a region of massive star formation in the southern sky, compares the view in visible light with a corresponding image taken in infrared light. Many features not seen at all in visible light can be seen in great detail in the 2012 infrared image from the VLT. (Credit: ESO/T. Preibisch) JWST’s views will be sharper, deeper and longer-wavelength than ever before. This highlighted image identifies some of the important features in the central region of the Carina Nebula. Several of the brightest stars are identified by their catalog numbers and are among the most massive stars known. The nebula itself is a hotbed of stellar birth and death. (Credit: NASA, ESA, Z. Levay (STScI)) 2.) WASP-96b. This artist’s rendering shows the gas giant planet WASP-96b: a hot exoplanet about the size of Jupiter, but only about half the mass of Jupiter, in a close orbit around its parent star: a G-class star just like Our sun. (Credit: Engine House) This “hot Jupiter” orbits its star every 3.4 days. Most exoplanets that have had their atmospheres measured have thick cloud layers that are not visible. But WASP-96b is unusual in that its spectrum shows a complete absence of clouds, providing a characteristic signature for the element sodium. With its new spectroscopy capabilities, JWST could reveal much more than any other instrument. (Courtesy: N. Nikolov/E. de Mooij) The exoplanet spectrum coming from JWST will reveal the details of its atmosphere. The NIRSpec instrument, now fully operational, will be capable of measuring the spectra of many different objects simultaneously, as well as taking individual component spectra of fairly large, bright objects. Whatever content exists in an exoplanet’s atmosphere, spectroscopy will help reveal. (Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA and the NIRSpec team) Someday, similar technology will discover our first habitable exoplanet. NGC 3132 is a spectacular example of a planetary nebula. This expanding cloud of gas, surrounding a dying star, is known to amateur astronomers in the southern hemisphere as the “Eight Burst” Nebula or the “Southern Ring” Nebula. (Credit: Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA/ESA)) 3.) Southern Ring Nebula. This unusual view of the Southern Ring Nebula highlights the signature of neutral oxygen found at the edges of the bubble walls, better revealing the three-dimensional shape of the nebula itself. (Credit: ESA/Hubble and NASA, Judy Schmidt) This planetary nebula arises from an isolated, dying Sun-like star. From their first origin to their final stretch before extinction, the stars will grow from the size of the Sun to the size of a red giant (Earth’s orbit) to ~5 light years in diameter, typically. The largest known planetary nebulae can reach about twice this size, up to ~10 light-years in diameter. (Courtesy: Ivan Bojičić, Quentin Parker and David Frew, Laboratory for Space Research, HKU) JWST will determine atomic and molecular abundances, mapping temperatures everywhere. Normally, a planetary nebula will appear similar to the Cat’s Eye Nebula, shown here. A central core of expanding gas is brightly illuminated by the central white dwarf, while the diffuse outer regions continue to expand, illuminated much more faintly. The extended halo of matter beyond the typical planetary nebula formed over ~100,000 years, due to previously ejected material. JWST may reveal faint, extended features of the Southern Ring Nebula that have never been detected before. (Credit: Nordic Optical Telescope and Romano Corradi (Isaac Newton Telescope Group, Spain)) Such measurements help scientists understand stellar life cycles. The First Compact Group of Galaxies Ever Discovered The Stefan Quintet is actually a larger, more extended group of more galaxies about 290 million light-years away with an interlaced galaxy in the foreground just 40 million light-years away. (Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO team) 4.) Stephan’s Quintet. This composite image of Stephan’s Quintet shows X-ray light and new, young stars forming from the interactions of gas within and between galaxies. The foreground spiral galaxy has faint X-ray emission; the background interacting pair is a much stronger X-ray emitter. (Credit: Radiography: NASA/CXC/CfA/E. O’Sullivan Optical: Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope/Coelum) This compact galaxy group features four interacting galaxies with one member in the foreground. These cosmic collisions are crucial to the growth and evolution of galaxies. This close-up look at details from the pair of closely interacting galaxies in the Stephan Quintet shows stellar streams and the colliding gas interface from which new stars emerge. With superior resolution and the ability to detect much longer wavelengths than Hubble, JWST will show us details and elements of these galaxies that were unknown before its launch. (Credit: NASA, ESA and the Hubble SM4 ERO team) JWST will resolve new details about the stars, gas and dust inside. This wide view of the region around Stefan’s Quintet shows additional galaxies, extended features of extended arms and stellar streams, and foreground stars in our Milky Way. A striking feature, outside of the main galaxies themselves, are the distant, faint smudges in the image: their own extremely distant galaxies. JWST will be spectacular in revealing them. (Credit: W4sm astro/Wikimedia Commons) 5.) SMACS 0723. This image of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 has been constructed from blue, green and red filters at Hubble, along with four infrared filter views of the central regions of the cluster. Hubble saw this object at wavelengths of ~1600 nanometers. JWST will go three times farther in the near-infrared alone. It may, in its first scientific release, break the record for the most distant galaxy ever discovered. (Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble (STScI)) The vast cluster of galaxies, in itself, is not the focus. An illustration of gravitational lensing shows how background galaxies—or any light path—are distorted by the presence of an intervening mass, but it also shows how space itself is bent and distorted by the presence of the foreground mass itself. When multiple background objects are aligned with the same foreground lens, multiple sets of multiple images can be seen by a properly aligned observer. (Credit: NASA, ESA & L. Road) Its gravity bends and distorts space-time, magnifying background objects. A Hubble Space Telescope view of the galaxy cluster MACS 0416 has been annotated in cyan and magenta to show how it acts as a ‘gravitational lens’, magnifying more distant background light sources. Cyan highlights the distribution of mass in the cluster, mainly in the form of dark matter. Magenta highlights the magnification of the background galaxies, which is related…