This week will see the exciting launch of the first scientific images from the James Webb Space Telescope. Its instruments and alignment of its mirrors and instruments, NASA is preparing to release the first images from the telescope, scheduled for July 12, and has announced the objects the images will show.
The first object is the Carina Nebula, a large cloud of dust and gas where a massive star exploded in 1843.
The nebula is famous for its beauty and for containing the star WR 25, the brightest star in our galaxy. It is large by nebula standards and lies 7,600 light-years away in the constellation Carina, which can be seen in the Southern Hemisphere.
The second object is a giant exoplanet called WASP-96b, located 1,150 light-years away, about half the mass of Jupiter and orbiting near its star, where its year lasts only 3.4 days, Digitartlends reported.
The data on that planet will include a spectrum that can be used to tell what an object is.
It could potentially include data about an exoplanet’s atmosphere, which is one of Webb’s new possibilities.
The third object is another nebula, the Southern Ring Nebula, which is bright and has a distinct circular shape, made of gas around a star approaching the end of its life.
The fourth and fifth bodies are located more widely, including a group of galaxies called Stephan’s Quintet located 290 million light-years away and has four of its five galaxies in close proximity, and a deep field image called SMACS 0723 in which a gravitational lens gives a deep view of distant and extremely faint galaxies.
These images are just a taste of the work that James Webb will be doing in his first year, and show a variety of objects he can study.
The images are scheduled to be released on Tuesday, July 12, starting at 10:30 a.m. ET (7:30 a.m. PT), and you can watch the release via a live stream on NASA TV.