2023-07-16 13:41:00
Truly touching: NASA has published an incredibly beautiful picture for the first working anniversary of its James Webb space telescope. The Rho Ophiuchi cloud can be seen – a region of star formation regarding 390 light years away.
To experience a birth – that is something special. Obtaining images of a star-forming region is virtually impossible. And yet the James Webb Space Telescope succeeded. The image shows regarding 50 young stars.
Im Video: Thousands of kilometers in size – James Webb space telescope finds gigantic cloud of water vapor
The birth of stars for the first birthday
James Webb is celebrating his birthday – and with a spectacular picture that he has succeeded in doing. The image of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud ‘allows us to see a very short period in a star’s life cycle with new clarity,’ explained Klaus Pontoppidan of the James Webb Telescope’s Science Program. “Our own sun went through a phase like this long ago, and now we have the technology to see the beginning of another star’s story.”
In order to be able to capture images of this kind at all, the James Webb telescope, which is more than one and a half million kilometers from Earth, is equipped with infrared technology. This allows it to penetrate cosmic dust clouds and capture light from the very first stars. “In just a year, the James Webb Telescope has changed mankind’s view of the cosmos, for the first time peering inside clouds of dust and seeing light from far corners of the universe,” said NASA CEO Bill Nelson. “Each new image is a new discovery, enabling scientists around the world to ask and answer questions they never dreamed of before.”
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s leading space observatory. As NASA writes, Webb solves mysteries in our solar system, looks beyond the distant worlds and other stars, and explores mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
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