The best Christmas present for astronomy and the scientific community was, without a doubt, last year the successful launch of the largest and most powerful space telescope ever created, the James Webb. Today, almost five months later, he continues to surprise and give small gifts.
This time, as NASA reported, the Webb sent back the first images from its instrument called Miri, which are in infrared wavelengths, and already surprised by its sharpness and clarity.
And that without having the entire telescope in operation yet, because on April 28 NASA reported that the approach of the observatory was finished, but that the different instruments are still being tested one by one.
Even so, scientists already confirm that the Miri opens up new possibilities for space exploration by having a sensitivity that they have calculated up to a hundred times greater than its predecessor, the Spitzer telescope.
The main objective of Webb is exploring cosmic origins: observe the first galaxies in the universe, reveal the birth of stars and planets, and examine exoplanets for conditions conducive to life; and Miri will be a key element in this exploration.
About the Miri
It is called, in English, Mid-Infrared Instrument, and it is the most sophisticated sent to space to work in the thermal infrared range (wavelengths from five to 28 microns).
Miri combines an imaging camera, an integral field spectrograph and a coronagraph. And all this with a sensitivity of ten to a hundred times more than its immediate predecessor, the Spitzer telescope (also NASA), and an angular resolution of six to eight times higher.
The comparison between their images shows the giant leap in the infrared vision of the universe.
“The characteristics of MIRI make it a unique instrument and it is destined to be a fundamental piece in the exploration of the universe, from exoplanets and protoplanetary disks (which gave rise to planetary systems), through the star-forming regions, to the black holes in nearby galaxies and the formation and evolution of galaxies from the earliest times of the universe and throughout its history”, points out Luis Colina from the Center for Astrobiology (CAB, CSIC-INTA).
first stars in the universe
Pablo Pérez Gónzalez, an expert in cosmological mapping and a member of the Miri team of the early universe, explains: “All the distant galaxies that we know today, which existed in the first 5% of the age of the universe, are very actively forming stars. But the observations that telescopes such as Hubble, GTC or Alma have provided us so far indicate that we are not seeing the first stars that formed in those objects. The proof is that in all these galaxies there are elements heavier than hydrogen or helium, the only ones that were present when no galaxy existed”.
“Our current data – he continues – only reveals the presence of very young, massive and hot stars, which are tremendously bright. MIRI, in a unique way and thanks to its sensitivity and spatial resolution, will give us information regarding older, smaller and more evolved stars that are present in these distant galaxies, which dominate their total mass, and which until now have remained completely hidden from our telescopes, blinded by the very bright young stars.
