2023-08-19 09:00:00
Posted 1:23 a.m. Updated 5:00 a.m.
Reveal the cosmos
After decades of research and development and more than $10 billion to build, the space telescope James Webb has proven that the performance of its sensors and its mirrors are up to the expectations placed in it. From distant galaxies providing us with invaluable data regarding the creation of the Universe to objects in our solar system, here is a selection of images captured by the space observatory, from its position 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
PHOTO LAURA BETZ, NASA
Composed of 18 independently adjustable gold-plated beryllium hexagons, the main mirror of James Webb measures 6.5m in diameter. Making it the largest space telescope ever built.
PHOTO NASA
Captured by its near infrared camera (NIRCam), this image reveals one of the first discoveries of James Webb : two stars hitherto impossible to observe emerge from the Southern Ring nebula (one shines in the center of the nebula and the second at the edge of the orange cloud). Also called NGC 3132, the nebula is located in the Milky Way, regarding 2000 light years from our solar system. The gigantic cloud of gas and dust that forms orange rings is produced by a star at the end of its life.
PHOTO NASA
Beautiful starscape, near the giant nebula NGC 3603, one of the largest clusters of young stars in the Milky Way. A nursery that has more than 7500 stars, many of them very young and very massive.
PHOTO NASA
James Webb’s infrared eye gives us an unprecedented look at Saturn. Rings composed mostly of ice appear much brighter than Saturn itself. “Saturn appears extremely dark at this infrared wavelength observed by the telescope, because methane gas [présent en petite quantité dans son atmosphère] absorbs almost all of the sunlight,” NASA explains on its website. To Saturn’s left are Dione, Enceladus and Tethys, 3 of the planet’s 82 moons.
PHOTO NASA
Thanks to the MIRI instrument (Mid-Infrared Instrument), the telescope has captured the final moment of a massive star before it explodes into a supernova. During this ephemeral transitory phase, the star is then called Wolf-Rayet. Named WR 124, the Wolf-Rayet star above is observed in the constellation of the Arrow, regarding 15,000 light-years from the solar system.
PHOTO NASA
On July 11, 2022 at the White House, Joe Biden unveiled the first image taken by James Webb : a scintillating panorama of colors representing galaxies born just following the Big Bang, more than 13 billion years ago. A “historic” day hailed by the American president.
PHOTO NASA
“In just one year, the telescope James Webb has transformed humanity’s view of the cosmos,” NASA boss Bill Nelson said in a statement on July 12, on the telescope’s first anniversary. A year following the release of his first pictures, James Webb unveiled this grandiose image in which we witness the birth of stars similar to our Sun.
PHOTO LA NASA
Released last summer by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, this image of the Phantom Galaxy (or M74) shows off its bright blue core and highlights its characteristic whirlpool. “Webb’s piercing gaze revealed fine filaments of gas and dust in the spiral-shaped glowing arms that fan out from the center of this image,” ESA writes on its website.
PHOTO NASA
Bordered by a cloud of dust that oscillates between orange and blue, revealed by the telescope’s NIRCam instrument, the protostar LDN-1527 (or L1527) is only 100,000 years old, a fetus in the stellar world. While waiting for its development to allow it to achieve nuclear fusion, the proto-star is “supplied” with materials by the black disc that surrounds it, a circle with dimensions similar to those of our solar system. In its early days, our Sun must have looked like this view of LDN-1527, NASA and ESA estimate.
PHOTO NASA
Made up of more than 100 astronomers, the High Angular Resolution Physics in Nearby Galaxies (PHANGS) collaboration team uses infrared images provided by James Webb to better understand spiral galaxies. Above, the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1433 photographed using the telescope’s MIRI instrument. For the first time, scientists observed cavernous gas bubbles, from which forming stars released energy.
PHOTO NASA
Born of a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, James Webb offers images of a richness that Hubbleits predecessor, cannot match. Hubble observes mainly what is visible, whereas James Webb uses infrared.
PHOTO NASA
Located in the constellation of Pegasus, the luminous spiral galaxy NGC 7469 is part of the Seyfert galaxies, characterized by their extremely bright nuclei at the center of which we find a supermassive black hole. These nuclei represent one of the largest known sources of electromagnetic radiation in the Universe. James Webb recently unveiled the oldest supermassive black hole ever observed. It would have formed 570 million years following the Big Bang.
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