Our view of the universe just expanded: The unveiled Monday is brimming with galaxies and offers the deepest look of the cosmos ever captured.
The first image from the US$10 billion James Webb Space Telescope is the farthest humanity has ever seen in both time and distance, closer to the dawn of time and the edge of the universe. That image will be followed Tuesday by the release of four more galactic beauty shots from the telescope鈥檚 initial outward gazes.
The 鈥渄eep field" image released at during a brief White House event is filled with lots of stars, with massive galaxies in the foreground and faint and extremely distant galaxies peeking through here and there. Part of the image is light from not too long after the Big Bang, which was 13.8 billion years ago.
President Joe Biden marvelled at the image that he said showed 鈥渢he oldest documented light in the history of the universe from over 13 billion -- let me say that again -- 13 billion years ago. It鈥檚 hard to fathom.鈥
The busy image with hundreds of specks, streaks, spirals and swirls of white, yellow, orange and red is only 鈥渙ne little speck of the universe,鈥 NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said.
鈥淲hat we saw today is the early universe,鈥 Harvard astronomer Dimitar Sasselov said in a phone interview after the reveal.
Sasselov said he and his colleague Charles Alcock first thought 鈥渨e鈥檝e seen this before." Then they looked closer at the image and pronounced the result not only beautiful but "worth all that waiting鈥 for the much-delayed project.
And even more is coming Tuesday. The pictures on tap include a view of a giant gaseous planet outside our solar system, two images of a nebula where stars are born and die in spectacular beauty and an update of a classic image of five tightly clustered galaxies that dance around each other.
The world鈥檚 biggest and most powerful space telescope rocketed away last December from French Guiana in South America. It reached its lookout point 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometres) from Earth in January. Then the lengthy process began to align the mirrors, get the infrared detectors cold enough to operate and calibrate the science instruments, all protected by a sunshade the size of a tennis court that keeps the telescope cool.
The plan is to use the telescope to peer back so far that scientists will get a glimpse of the early days of the universe about 13.7 billion years ago and zoom in on closer cosmic objects, even our own solar system, with sharper focus.
How far back past 13 billion years did that first image look? NASA didn't provide any estimate Monday. Outside scientists said those calculations will take time, but they are fairly certain somewhere in the busy image is a galaxy older than humanity has ever seen, probably back to 500 million or 600 million years after the Big Bang.
鈥淚t takes a little bit of time to dig out those galaxies,鈥 University of California, Santa Cruz, astrophysicist Garth Illingworth said. 鈥淚t's the things you almost can't see here, the tiniest little red dots.鈥
鈥淭his is absolutely spectacular, absolutely amazing,鈥 he added. 鈥淭his is everything we鈥檝e dreamed of in a telescope like this.鈥
Webb is considered the successor to the highly successful, but aging Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble has stared as far back as 13.4 billion years. It found the light wave signature of an extremely bright galaxy in 2016. Astronomers measure how far back they look in light-years with one light-year being 5.8 trillion miles (9.3 trillion kilometres).
鈥淲ebb can see backwards in time to just after the Big Bang by looking for galaxies that are so far away that the light has taken many billions of years to get from those galaxies to our telescopes,鈥 said Jonathan Gardner, Webb鈥檚 deputy project scientist said during a June media briefing.
The deepest view of the cosmos 鈥渋s not a record that will stand for very long,鈥 project scientist Klaus Pontoppidan said during the briefing, since scientists are expected to use the Webb telescope to go even deeper.
At 21 feet (6.4 metres), Webb鈥檚 gold-plated, flower-shaped mirror is the biggest and most sensitive ever sent into space. It鈥檚 comprised of 18 segments, one of which was smacked by a bigger than anticipated micrometeoroid in May. Four previous micrometeoroid strikes to the mirror were smaller. Despite the impacts, the telescope has continued to exceed mission requirements, with barely any data loss, according to NASA.
NASA is collaborating on Webb with the European and Canadian space agencies.
鈥淚鈥檓 now really excited as this dramatic progress augurs well for reaching the ultimate prize for many astronomers like myself: pinpointing 鈥淐osmic Dawn鈥 鈥 the moment when the universe was first bathed in starlight,鈥 Richard Ellis, professor of astrophysics at University College London, said by email.
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AP Aerospace Writer Marcia Dunn contributed.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute鈥檚 Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
ANALYSIS
By John Vennavally-Rao
Toronto Correspondent, CTV National News
As a kid growing up in the 1970s, we only ever knew for sure there were 9 planets. Not just in our solar system but in the whole universe (this was long before lowly Pluto lost its planetary status.)
Sure, astronomers imagined there were plenty of other planets in the cosmos. But there was no proof.
We now know there are likely hundreds of billions of planets just in our own Milky Way galaxy. And on Tuesday you鈥檙e going to be hearing a lot about one of them. A gas giant more than 1000 light years away called WASP-96B.
It was among the first objects that scientists peered at with the new James Webb Space Telescope. An instrument so powerful it may tell us whether the planet has an atmosphere and what it is made up of. Astronomy has certainly come a long way and the images about to be released are some of the most anticipated in years. A big top 10 moment as one scientist put it.
People often ask how the Webb differs from the Hubble.
For one thing it鈥檚 just a lot bigger. Its primary mirror is 6.5 metres wide versus the Hubble鈥檚 2.4 metres. So it can capture far more light. But more importantly the Webb sees differently than its predecessor. The Hubble looked mostly at visible and ultraviolet light. The Webb is designed to see the universe in the infrared which we feel as heat. Infrared light can penetrate the dust and gas that can hide newly forming stars and planets. And it will allow astronomers to peer so deep into the universe they鈥檒l be able to see galaxies forming shortly after the Big Bang (we鈥檙e talking about 100-200 million years after.)
To put it another way 鈥 it鈥檚 been said the Hubble could see galaxies when they were toddlers, but the Webb will see them as babies.
The Webb is also stationed much further away. About 1.5 million kilometres compared to the Hubble which orbits 570 kilometres above the Earth. This is so the Webb can stay cool which is important when you want to look the universe in the infrared.
NASA is promising on Tuesday we鈥檒l see the deepest image of our universe ever taken. They want to show off what this 10 billion dollar telescope can do. Astronomers couldn鈥檛 be more giddy to see the results.
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