2023-07-12 06:15:06
NASA is due to reveal a new image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope on Wednesday, exactly one year following the publication of its first shots of the cosmos, which had amazed the world.
On July 12, 2022, the American space agency unveiled the first color images of its new space observatory — sublime nebulae and groupings of galaxies. The event marked the start of the scientific operations of this jewel of technology, evolving at 1, 5 million kilometers from Earth.
For this first anniversary, NASA did not leak anything regarding the new surprise image. She plans to look back on this first year of discoveries during a live video broadcast on the internet, and events are also planned locally across the United States. For a year, James Webb has been dazzling astronomers with images of a precision never achieved before. He observed the most distant galaxy ever detected, measured for the first time the temperature of distant rocky planets “cousins” of the Earth, or even observed very young stars and black holes. James Webb has already shaken up our understanding of the Universe, and the flow of scientific studies drawn from his observations is constant.
One of the main missions of the telescope is the exploration of the very young Universe. Another major line of research: the study of exoplanets, that is to say planets outside the solar system. It should also help to better understand the formation and life cycle of stars.
In addition to these accomplishments, the general public was able to revel in sumptuous images. In October, James Webb revealed his first shot of the iconic “Pillars of Creation”, huge structures of gas and dust full of stars in formation, 6,500 light years from Earth, in our Milky Way. The flight of the flying observatory, worth 10 billion dollars, aboard an Ariane 5 rocket at the end of 2021, had crowned decades of work. It is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, itself still in operation.
Unlike Hubble, which observes the Universe mainly in the visible spectrum, James Webb operates in the infrared. This allows him to detect much weaker lights, and therefore to see much further. This wavelength being imperceptible to human eyes, the images are then “translated” into visible colors.
James Webb has enough fuel to run for 20 years, and thus promises many more years of breathtaking discoveries.
NASA is due to reveal a new image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope on Wednesday, exactly one year following the publication of its first shots of the cosmos, which had amazed the world.
On July 12, 2022, the American space agency unveiled the first color images of its new space observatory – sublime…
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