Good Morning. March 31, one day after the incredible announcement of the Hubble discovery, I have the honor of speaking with Rosa Díaz. Rosa is fully involved in the kitchen of what is Hubble and James Webb, she is a Mexican astrophysicist who works at the Space Telescope Science Institute, if I am not mistaken Rosa is Deputy Head of the Engineering Group for Missions and Scientific Analysis for the HST and the JWST.
Q.- How are you, Rosa? What a pleasure.
A.- Very well, thank you. A pleasure to be here with you.
Q.- How are you the day after? I imagine this has been cooking for some time. How do you feel the day after the statement and what are the repercussions?
A.- Well, it is very interesting to communicate these types of discoveries to the entire community, to people, who realize what we can do with the Hubble telescope. It continues to make very important discoveries and the fact that we have been able to see this star so far away is a very, very important event.
Q.- My first question is: Did the team…find this by chance or were they specifically looking for a discovery like this?
R.- Good. This program was focusing on galaxy clusters which we know produce these gravitational lenses that magnify light from very distant objects. So, he was looking for objects very far away in time that had this magnification by gravitational lensing.
So they were trying to look for distant galaxies and luckily everything lined up properly so that they could detect a star, which is something that was not expected.
Q.- So this star is inside a galaxy? Obviously we don’t know why it is, I understand, at the edge of gravitational lensing and because it is stretched out on this horizon we were able to detect a particular star.
A.- Yes, normally when you look at gravitational lenses they appear in arcs and you have to do the math and everything to know why they form in arcs, and normally what you see is the galaxy that is spread out in an arc and the brilliance and compactness This star is what allowed us to deduce that it is a star, or maybe it could be two stars, but so far, due to its brightness, it can be deduced that it is a star. But these arcs are always produced by gravitational lensing.
Q.- Why don’t you explain to me and to the audience, what is a gravitational lens?
A.- It is a phenomenon that Einstein predicted in the 1920s and basically massive objects deform the fabric of space and time, and this makes the light that comes from distant objects follow a different path than if it were all flat, and is deflected and this deflection will cause you to see more light than if you didn’t have this gravitational lens.
That’s why they call it gravitational lensing, because they magnify light and this is what allows us to see objects that are very distant, beyond the limit of what we could see if we didn’t have this gravitational lens.
Q.- Rosa, do I understand that between Hubble’s line of sight and this new star there was a galaxy that was what allowed the image… this lens to be produced and we can discover it?
A.- It was not a galaxy, it was a cluster of galaxies, it is a very massive cluster of galaxies, that is, the more massive the more it helps you to make this application, but also the stars within the galaxy where these stars are also this it contributes to the amplification of the light and everything was arranged perfectly so that we could see a star.
Q.- Rosa… we have a star that is almost 13 billion light years away. What do you want to know about that star now? As an astrophysicist, perhaps in the place where astronomy is known the most, what would you like to know immediately, spectral type, mass, temperature, what would you love to know?
A.- We know with these observations that the mass is between 50 and 100 solar masses, but we also want to see: is it one star or two? It can’t be a cluster because of the size, it should be one or two, but we also want to know the elements, because it formed as early in the time of the universe, as 7 percent of the age of the universe, so knowing the composition gives us idea of how the stars were in the past and this is what we want to learn from these observations: how the universe has evolved, how it has changed as time has passed.
Q.- This, I imagine that since the launch of James Webb they gave us many examples of how Hubble and James Webb are going to work together and I think there is nothing better than this example (…) this is perhaps the first of the examples of how they can work together, right?
A.- Yes, astronomers cannot go to galaxies or stars, the only thing we have is light and different telescopes that observe different types of light give us the information we need. James Webb is as powerful as Hubble in the infrared, Hubble observes in the visible and ultraviolet, if we put this information together we will be able to learn much more about this star and also like James Webb we will be able to see in more detail further in time , because it observes in the infrared, then it will be able to give us more details about this star.
Q.- Rosa, I imagine that James Webb has a calendar of upcoming goals prepared, is Eärendel on this calendar?
A.- Yes, it is in the observations of the first cycle of James Webb, they are already prepared to try to see the spectral type well and all that information that you were mentioning.
Q.- Having two telescopes is a dream, isn’t it? The fact of having two telescopes in orbit that complement each other in this way. How is Hubble’s health? Because we know that he is 32 years old, he continues to make incredible discoveries, do we have to light a candle to keep them both working for many more years? Tell me what the status of Hubble is.
A.- Well, Hubble continues to work very well, the instruments it has are very powerful and it continues to work very well. These observations show us that it continues to work very well. In the last service mission, many very important components were changed, which allows us to have these images and will continue to give us this type of image for several more years.
Q.- Have you always had a passion for space?
A.- Yes, I have always had, I always liked science, I always liked seeing the stars when I was little, although I never imagined that it would reach this point.
Q.- Question from a user on Twitter: Could Eärendel have its own solar system or is it too early for heavy elements to allow a planetary system to form?
A.- Probably not, because a long time is needed to form a planetary system and this, how is a massive star, has a very short lifetime. So I don’t think he’s going to have one, because he’s very bright, he doesn’t live long and he doesn’t have time.
Q.- Question from users on Twitter: When the red current is measured through a gravitational lens, do we have to make extra corrections?
A.- No. The mathematical equations allow you to deduce depending on the distance of the cluster, you have to know the distance of the cluster, you have to know the type of filter you are using to know the distance of the object.
Q.- When do you think we can observe the first observations of the Webb?
A.- The first observations are going to be around June (2022), it is when they are going to make the first observations of the teams that are doing them and then the observations of the first cycle of all will begin, later in the summer. the scientists who proposed for the James Webb. I don’t know when exactly the Eärendel observations were scheduled, but we’re going to start observing with James Webb like in the summer.
R.- Are you currently working on a research project within the Hubble Institute?
Q.- Well, my main job is to help all the scientists or the teams that receive the data from both telescopes and help them with the processing of the data. The telescope takes images that you have to clean up, remove the effects of the detectors and those kinds of marks that you don’t want to be confused with science… I’m very involved with all the instruments, in particular the James Webb.
Q.- You are surprised by how incredible the James Webb has been so far, I don’t think we have had any kind of problem since its deployment, each of its instruments have worked wonderfully. Are you surprised and excited about what’s to come?
A.- I’m super excited, I’m not that surprised that everything turned out so well because we’ve done too many tests, many years of work to make sure everything works as it should and this is what we’re seeing. But yes, I am super excited to see the first images of James Webb.
Q.- Yes, we are all like that. Rosa, I don’t want to take up your time anymore, you were very clear, I thank you very much and congratulations for this discovery, for an incredible career and hopefully we can continue chatting and spreading the word about these incredible things that happen in the universe.
A.- Thank you very much, it was a pleasure to be here and to meet you.
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