To the birth of the universe and beyond

Welcome! Here you'll find updates on NASA'’s newest ambition - the James Webb Space Telescope. ⭐️ Not affiliated with NASA, just someone who loves space and nerding out over it.

[james-webb-space-telescope]

This first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

[james-webb-space-telescope]

reblog if you're gay or if you just really love the james webb space telescope

no one will know

[james-webb-space-telescope]

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a lush, highly detailed landscape – the iconic Pillars of Creation – where new stars are forming within dense clouds of gas and dust. The three-dimensional pillars look like majestic rock formations, but are far more permeable. These columns are made up of cool interstellar gas and dust that appear – at times – semi-transparent in near-infrared light.

The Pillars of Creation are set off in a kaleidoscope of color in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared-light view. The pillars look like arches and spires rising out of a desert landscape, but are filled with semi-transparent gas and dust, and ever changing. This is a region where young stars are forming – or have barely burst from their dusty cocoons as they continue to form.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI).

[james-webb-space-telescope]

This is not an ethereal landscape of time-forgotten tombs. Nor are these soot-tinged fingers reaching out. These pillars, flush with gas and dust, enshroud stars that are slowly forming over many millennia. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has snapped this eerie, extremely dusty view of the Pillars of Creation in mid-infrared light – showing us a new view of a familiar landscape.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

[james-webb-space-telescope]

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed the once-hidden features of the protostar within the dark cloud L1527, providing insight into the beginnings of a new star. These blazing clouds within the Taurus star-forming region are only visible in infrared light.

The protostar itself is hidden from view within the “neck” of this hourglass shape. An edge-on protoplanetary disk is seen as a dark line across the middle of the neck. Light from the protostar leaks above and below this disk, illuminating cavities within the surrounding gas and dust.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI. Image processing: J. DePasquale, A. Pagan, and A. Koekemoer (STScI)

[james-webb-space-telescope]

Webb’s latest image is the clearest look at Neptune's rings in 30+ years, and our first time seeing them in infrared light.

Most striking in Webb’s new image is the crisp view of the planet’s rings – some of which have not been detected since NASA’s Voyager 2 became the first spacecraft to observe Neptune during its flyby in 1989. In addition to several bright, narrow rings, the Webb image clearly shows Neptune’s fainter dust bands.

Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) images objects in the near-infrared range from 0.6 to 5 microns, so Neptune does not appear blue to Webb. In fact, the methane gas so strongly absorbs red and infrared light that the planet is quite dark at these near-infrared wavelengths, except where high-altitude clouds are present. Such methane-ice clouds are prominent as bright streaks and spots, which reflect sunlight before it is absorbed by methane gas.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

[james-webb-space-telescope]

Check out this binary pair of rare stars in the constellation of Cygnus, located 5,600 light-years away. See those rings of light? Those rings are actually dust that's emitted when the two stars interact - sending shells of dust out into the space surrounding them over time. The dust is actually glowing in infrared, which is why Webb's MIRI cam can capture them in stunning detail. These stars, consisting of a Wolf-Rayet star (WR 140) and its massive O-type star companion, are what is known as a colliding wind binary. Their elliptical orbit means that they don't orbit in circles around each other, but rather in an oval-shape. When these two stars are closest to each other (still 30% greater than the distance between Earth and the Sun), they become close enough that their powerful winds collide. These colliding winds also induce episodes of dust formation as the material in the colliding stellar wind cools. This process can be seen in the animation below.

The dust is a form of carbon, which absorbs ultraviolet light from the two stars. This heats the dust, causing it to re-emit thermal radiation – which is what is observed by Webb in infrared wavelengths. The dust is then blown outward by the stellar wind, resulting in the expansion of the partial dust shells. They expand and cool as they are blown outward, losing heat and density. What you're looking at in Webb's image is a bit like a series of bubbles; the edge of each dust shell is more visible because you're looking at a denser concentration of material due to perspective.

Because the binary star's orbit has a 7.94-year period, the wind collision and dust production occur like clockwork every 7.94 years. This means you can count the rings of the nebula around the binary, like tree rings, to determine the age of the outermost visible dust shell.

Around 20 rings are visible, which means you can see around 160 years' worth of dust shells in the Webb image.

[james-webb-space-telescope]

The JWST has captured the inner region of the Orion Nebula in stunning detail. This stellar nursery is located in the constellation Orion - 1,350 light-years away from Earth.

[james-webb-space-telescope]

In this mosaic image stretching 340 light-years across, Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) displays the Tarantula Nebula star-forming region in a new light, including tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously shrouded in cosmic dust. The most active region appears to sparkle with massive young stars, appearing pale blue.

Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team

[james-webb-space-telescope]

What if you could hear Webb data? A near-infrared image of the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula, captured by NASA’s Webb Telescope, has been mapped to a symphony of sounds.

The gas and dust in the top half of the image are represented in blue hues and windy, drone-like sounds. The bottom half of the image, represented in ruddy shades of orange and red, has a clearer, more melodic composition. Brighter light in the image is louder.

The vertical position of light also dictates the frequency of sound. For example, bright light near the top of the image sounds loud and high, but bright light near the middle is loud and lower pitched. Dimmer, dust-obscured areas that appear lower in the image are represented by lower frequencies and clearer, undistorted notes.

[james-webb-space-telescope]

Hubble's observations of M74, also known as the Phantom Galaxy, revealed bright areas of star formation in visible and ultraviolet wavelengths. Webb’s infrared vision is helping to pinpoint these regions, accurately measure the masses and ages of star clusters, and gain insight into interstellar dust.

From left to right: Hubble / Optical, Hubble & Webb, Webb / Infrared

[james-webb-space-telescope]

This image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the heart of M74, otherwise known as the Phantom Galaxy. Webb’s sharp vision has revealed delicate filaments of gas and dust in the grandiose spiral arms which wind outwards from the centre of this image. A lack of gas in the nuclear region also provides an unobscured view of the nuclear star cluster at the galaxy's centre. M74 is a particular class of spiral galaxy known as a ‘grand design spiral’, meaning that its spiral arms are prominent and well-defined, unlike the patchy and ragged structure seen in some spiral galaxies.

Image credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team. Acknowledgement: J. Schmidt

[james-webb-space-telescope]

Do you ever look at an image from JWST and just start crying

Genuinely, all the time. When Webb's first images came out, I was astonished and couldn't even form the right words internally to describe how I was feeling. All I could do was tear up and think, "we did this. humanity did this," and I couldn't really focus on anything else for the rest of the day let alone the rest of the week.

And then it's just been incredible how many more have been published since then that instill that same happy-cry feeling of sheer awe. Isn't it beautiful, isn't it fascinating how data from thousands if not hundreds of thousands if not millions if not billions of light years away of a place we'll never actually be close to, could inspire tears of pure happiness and admiration? Because of course, yes, Webb in and of itself is a massively incredible feat, but when you think of the thousands of people who've worked tirelessly on it for years, when you think of the human aspect of it, it honestly just makes me cry even more.

We as a species are and have been so enthralled with space that we may have not physically sent ourselves to the cosmos where Webb is, but we sent ourselves all the same. And the cosmos sent themselves right back and said "this is just the beginning". And dear god, the more I think about Webb, the more I think about space, about stars, about all of it, the closer I become to shedding a tear as I type this right now. It's so beautiful, and beautiful seems like such an understatement. It's bewitching.

So yes, my friend, I often start crying looking at these beautiful images NASA and Webb and the scientists and astronomers working with Webb have worked so hard to get to us, and I'll cry in the future again when more of the beauty of space is revealed to us.

[james-webb-space-telescope]

In this Webb NIRCam composite image from two filters – F212N (orange) and F335M (cyan), Jupiter can be seen with its faint rings, which are a million times fainter than the planet, and two tiny moons called Amalthea and Adrastea.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Ricardo Hueso (UPV/EHU) and Judy Schmidt.

[james-webb-space-telescope]

New Webb images of Jupiter highlight the planet's features, including its turbulent Great Red Spot, in amazing detail.

In this image, auroras extend to high altitudes above both the northern and southern poles of Jupiter. The auroras shine in a filter that is mapped to redder colors, which also highlights light reflected from lower clouds and upper hazes. A different filter, mapped to yellows and greens, shows hazes swirling around the northern and southern poles. A third filter, mapped to blues, showcases light that is reflected from a deeper main cloud.  

The Great Red Spot, a famous storm so big it could swallow Earth, appears white in these views, as do other clouds, because of how much sunlight they're reflecting.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jupiter ERS Team; image processing by Judy Schmidt.

[james-webb-space-telescope]

Galaxy Cluster SMACS 0723, Webb Spectra Confirm Two Arcs Are the Same Galaxy: At far left is a large NIRISS image, with two long, arced galaxies toward the center. In the middle is a NIRISS Grism image that shows the light of every object in this segment of the galaxy field, spread out horizontally. The right side shows two line graphs. The brightnesses at each wavelength of the two long, arced galaxies are plotted in two line graphs. The graphs show that the peaks for hydrogen and oxygen occur at the same wavelengths for both galaxies.

The spectra from each of these two galaxies were plotted as graphs, shown at right, to reveal their compositions. The graphs, known as spectra, match, which indicates that these arcs are mirror images of the same galaxy. Webb’s spectra from NIRISS also quickly proved that light from both galaxies was emitted 9.3 billion years ago, further confirming they are one and the same.

By quickly examining the image at left by eye, it becomes clearer that one arc may be made up of two similar-looking galaxies. Their bright central regions match, despite their stretched appearances. These may be lensed galaxies – one galaxy that is mirrored in a second location.

[james-webb-space-telescope]

This image from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) shows a group of galaxies, including a large distorted ring-shaped galaxy known as the Cartwheel. The Cartwheel Galaxy, located 500 million light-years away in the Sculptor constellation, is composed of a bright inner ring and an active outer ring. While this outer ring has a lot of star formation, the dusty area in between reveals many stars and star clusters.