7th July, 2022
By: Haris Ahmad
The James Webb Telescope was launched into space successfully, onboard the Ariane 5 rocket from the Guiana Space Centre in Kourou, French Guiana on the 25th of December.
The telescope was planned to be launched into orbit at a very far distance, at a point called the Second Lagrange point. This point in orbit is 1.5 million km away from the Earth though it is still in the zone of orbiting the Earth. The advantage of this orbit is that firstly, the light from the Earth and the Moon will no longer disturb the camera and secondly, the telescope will have a larger field of view. It successfully reached this point on 24th January and it was a moment of jubilation for everyone here on Earth.
Eventually, scientists on Earth operating the Telescope successfully unfastened its instruments and tested them. Due to the efforts of countless scientists, it was a success and the instruments worked as they were supposed to.
On July 12th, the first images taken by Webb were released by NASA. They include the images of the Carina Nebula, the Stephan's Quintet, Southern Ring Nebula, and a deep field image known as SMACS 0723. In addition, it also released a picture that uncovered the atmospheric composition of the Hot Gas Giant named WASP-96b, a feature that no telescope has ever had before.
In this blog, I will explain the deep field image taken by the telescope since there's a lot going on in that image.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScl
This image isn't the first of its kind since Hubble has been taking deep field images since it was launched but it is true that the one captured by Webb is the clearest and sharp infra-red deep field we have ever witnessed. It covers a grain-sized part of the sky but contains millions of stars and galaxies.
Moreover, if we look deeply, we can see that some of the galaxies look curved or bent.
In reality, that is not what these galaxies look like and neither are they located in the places we are able to observe in this picture. Actually, these galaxies are located behind the galaxies we see them curved around. The reason we see them in such a way is because of a phenomenon called Gravitational Lensing. It is a process in which light from celestial objects behind extremely dense objects such as black holes is bent in such a way, that it results in multiple images of the object seen around the dense object. This process can be clearly seen in the Webb captured deep field image. The bent galaxies are at least 13.5 billion light years away from us and were born in the early stages of the universe, approximately 300 million years after the Big Bang.
Furthermore, the instruments on the Webb telescope that can detect the atmospheric composition of exoplanets are also an extremely unique feature and has a lot of potential. It can help us find planets with suitable conditions for life to thrive which can, in turn, be studied and examined to find extra-terrestrial life outside planet Earth.
These images were just sneak peeks of what Webb can achieve and there's a lot more to come. I am extremely excited to see what this telescope uncovers. I'm sure you are too.
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