Wolf-Rayet star 124 (center), captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, June 2022. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team via AP)
Re-examining several images from the James Webb Space Telescope this year, the massive telescope has captured dazzling stars, galaxy clusters, nebulae where stars are born and die, and images of Saturn, complete with its brightly shining rings.
Among the images is Wolf–Rayet, known as the brightest star. Amber Straughn from NASA explained about the star. “The star’s light travels across space for about 15,000 light years, until it is finally captured by the detectors on the telescope (Webb),” he explained.
With Webb, the team of scientists hoped to catch a glimpse of the light from the first stars and galaxies that formed 13.7 billion years ago, just 100 million years from the Big Bang that created the universe.
“We said last fall, that we would know the telescope was working when we got an image of a star that looked like a star. And now we have it. This image is actually a 2,100 second exposure, taken at about two microns. The telescope is designed working at or above those wavelengths. We see not only the star and the stellar diffraction spikes, but also the other stars very clearly around them,” said Lee Feinberg, manager of optical elements for the Webb telescope at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star cluster to Earth, seen with the James Webb Space Telescope using the NIRCam instrument released July 12, 2023. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan and Alyssa Pagan/Handout via REUTERS)
Webb is the largest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever sent from Earth. The design is complex, the scope ambitious. With a budget of $10 billion, this telescope is also the most expensive. Its infrared eyes will ‘catch’ black holes and look for alien creatures. It scours the planet’s atmosphere in search of water and other possible clues to life.
Jane Rigby, of Webb operations project, NASA, said, “The goal is to build a telescope that is a hundred times more powerful than anything we have ever had. From the preliminary engineering data we’ve seen so far, we know we’ll be able to meet the very demanding science requirements. The engineered images we saw this time are as sharp as those the Hubble telescope can take.”
2023-07-19 19:08:53
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