Science | Astrophysics
Joe Biden has presented in the White House an image of the Cosmos as it was only 600 million years after the Big Bang
It was the most anticipated image. And more so since NASA and ESA announced at the beginning of June that today they were going to make public several photos taken by the
james webb space telescope, now fully operational. The first was brought forward and was presented after midnight -more than an hour late on schedule- by Joe Biden at the White House, yet another demonstration of the extraordinary power of NASA and the conviction of the current US Administration of the seductive capacity of science and, in particular, of astronomy. The president was accompanied at the event by Vice President Kamala Harris and Bill Nelson, general manager of the space agency. On these lines you have the image: the Universe as it was only 600 million years after the Big Bang.
Dubbed the First Webb Deep Field, it corresponds to a cluster of galaxies called SMACS 0723. Thousands of galaxies are seen in it, including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared, and we are talking about a region of the sky the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length, NASA explained. Taken with the near infrared camera (NIRCam, for its acronym in English), it is composed of images in different wavelengths, with a total of 12.5 hours of exposure.
SMACS 0723 looks as it did about 4.6 billion years ago. But the combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying galaxies much more distant behind it. I mean, much older. These early galaxies have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before. “We can see things that no one has seen before. We can go places no one has gone before,” Biden said, on “a historic day.” NASA Director Bill Nelson hopes the new observatory will soon teach us about the Universe 13.5 billion years ago, just 300 million years after the Big Bang.
The first images of the Webb had circulated among a handful of experts in the strictest secrecy, the necessary to surround them with even greater expectation. What I have seen has moved me, as a scientist, as an engineer and as a human being, “said Pam Melroy, deputy administrator of NASA, a few days ago. “It’s really hard not to look at the Universe in a new light and not have a deeply personal moment. It’s an emotional moment when you see nature suddenly unleash some of its secrets, and I’d like you to imagine it and look forward to it,” agreed Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for the space agency’s Science Mission Directorate.
President Biden at the White House, during the presentation of the first images of the James Webb. /
NASA will present today images of the Carina Nebula, a stellar nursery; of the nebula of the South Ring or the Eight Bursts; of Stephan’s Quintet, the first compact group of galaxies discovered, in 1877; and the spectrum of WASP-96 b, a giant planet located nearly 1,150 light-years away. “When I first saw the images, I suddenly learned three things about the Universe that I didn’t know. They have totally blown my mind,” Dan Coe, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STSI) and an expert on the early Universe, told AFP.
Hubble’s successor
The best picture scientists had of the early Universe so far is the so-called
Hubble Ultra Deep Field. Some 10,000 galaxies are seen in it, of which 100 – the smallest and reddest – are the most distant known at the time, since they existed when the Universe was only 800 million years old, while the largest and best defined date from when it was already 13,000 million years old. To get that view, Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys made 800 exposures over 400 orbits between September 24, 2003 and January 16, 2004. The new space observatory has been operational for a few weeks and has already taken a look at what deepest and oldest in the Cosmos.
The James Webb Telescope is a project led by NASA, in collaboration with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian (CSA). Considered the successor to Hubble, which has been in Earth orbit for 32 years, it is an infrared observatory – a part of the spectrum that allows it to pass through clouds of dust and gas – and the most complex astronomical instrument in history. It has cost 9,600 million dollars, and its construction, which began in 2004, required more than 40 million hours of work by technicians, engineers and scientists from fourteen countries, including Spain. It owes its name to the second administrator general of NASA, who led the Apollo project.
James Webb selfie, with all 18 segments of its primary mirror already aligned, in early March. /
The Webb has a mass of 6,200 kilos, its primary mirror measures 6.5 meters in diameter and its thermal shield – which keeps the mirrors and instruments at -233º C – is 21.2 meters long and 14.2 meters wide. It has to be that cold to detect infrared radiation from the most distant objects in the Universe. According to those responsible for the mission, the thermal shielding is the equivalent of a solar protection factor of one million and essential for the observatory to detect the equivalent of the heat that a bumblebee would give off on the Moon.
The telescope was launched folded up on top of an Ariane 5 rocket. on December 25 from the European spaceport of Kurú, in French Guiana. During the month-long journey to the second Lagrange point (L2), she gradually opened up.
L2 is 1.5 million kilometers from Earth to the outside of the Solar System. There the gravitational attractions of the Sun and our planet make an object remain stable with respect to the Earth. One week after arriving at your destination,
the Webb photographed on February 2 its first star, from which he obtained 18 images, one for each of the segments of his primary mirror, which were not yet aligned. Today, NASA has presented the first image with scientific value at the White House.
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