{"id":790640,"date":"2024-10-25T15:11:03","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T20:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=790640"},"modified":"2024-10-25T15:11:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T20:11:03","slug":"jwst-images-10-stunning-images-that-show-the-beauty-of-space-from-galaxies-to-nebulae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceweekly.com\/?p=790640","title":{"rendered":"JWST images: 10 stunning images that show the beauty of space \u2013 from galaxies to nebulae"},"content":{"rendered":"


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NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

In its short existence, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has transformed our understanding of the universe. It has peered at planets, stars, galaxies and black holes, casting its eye over a cornucopia of celestial treats. It can seem like JWST arrived out of nowhere, but the telescope has been the collective effort of tens of thousands of scientists over decades. One of those scientists, Maggie Aderin-Pocock, is modest about her individual contribution, instead preferring to talk about the telescope\u2019s fruits. \u201cThe detail the telescope can get, the wonderful resolution it gets with its six-and-a-half-metre mirror, results in some glorious images,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In her new book, Webb\u2019s Universe: The space telescope images that reveal our cosmic history<\/em>, Aderin-Pocock, presenter of The Sky At Night<\/em> and chancellor of the University of Leicester, UK, catalogues these images, detailing the science behind each striking view, as well as giving a comprehensive, insider\u2019s take on how we developed JWST\u2019s technology. The images span a vast range of distances, from the most distant black holes from us, born near the start of the universe, to Uranus and other planets in our cosmic backyard. For each object, JWST has revealed something hidden from prior view, thanks to the unique spectrum of infrared light it can detect.<\/p>\n

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One of Aderin-Pocock\u2019s favourite phrases to describe what she, and JWST, does is \u201cI trip the light fantastic\u201d, a phrase derived from poet John Milton\u2019s description of a light and nimble dance to music. Although JWST\u2019s manoeuvres in space can be thought of as a careful and coordinated dance, Aderin-Pocock also likes the phrase for how it intimates at the spectrum of light we can now view the universe in. \u201cWhen we see the universe through these different wavelengths, we gather different bits of information \u2013 different chemical reactions and different temperatures release [different] radiation \u2013 and it\u2019s when we put all this together that we get a better understanding of the complete picture.\u201d<\/p>\n

Uranus<\/h2>\n
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\"Uranus\"<\/div>
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JWST often makes headlines for its discoveries about the most distant reaches of the universe from us, but it is also in a prime position to image the planets in our own solar system, which it can see in stunning detail. \u201cThis picture sums it up,\u201d says Aderin-Pocock. \u201cIt\u2019s a glorious picture of Uranus. Not many people are familiar with the rings of Uranus, but all of the outer planets \u2013 Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune \u2013 have rings. You don\u2019t often see them in this detail and that\u2019s because we\u2019re looking at infrared energy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Carina nebula<\/h2>\n
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NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The Ring nebula<\/h2>\n
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ESA\/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Barlow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

There is still much that astronomers don\u2019t know about how stars are born, but the answers lie in nebulae, vast tracts of gas and dust that can span distances many times larger than our solar system. Astronomers have imaged these stellar nurseries for decades, but JWST is helping us see things we couldn\u2019t previously. Pictured above are the Carina and Ring nebulae. \u201cLooking with optical telescopes, not all visible light can pass through this dust and gas,\u201d says Aderin-Pocock. \u201cWhen we look at it with an infrared telescope, suddenly we see these nebulae in a very different way \u2013 we see details that we haven\u2019t seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Pillars of Creation<\/h2>\n
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One of the most iconic images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope was a zoomed-in portion of the Eagle nebula called the Pillars of Creation, another star-forming region of gas and dust. But the image was first taken in the 1920s by astronomer John Charles Duncan, says Aderin-Pocock. JWST has now given us another view of the three columns, more than a century later. \u201cIt shows how our technology has moved on and progressed, and how each time we take a more detailed image, or an image with a different wavelength of light, we get a different understanding,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex<\/h2>\n
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NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pon<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Aside from the scientific insights, the infrared views of nearby stellar clouds, such as Rho Ophiuchi, can be inspirational on an aesthetic level. \u201cI love this image,\u201d says Aderin-Pocock. \u201cTo me, it looks like a really exotic bird.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 1990s, astronomer Robert Williams pointed Hubble at an apparently empty patch of sky and left it to gather light for several days. The resulting image was bursting with galaxies, many of them the youngest and furthest away that we knew of. \u201cFrom that, they were able to infer that, within the whole of the universe, there are about 200 billion galaxies, which slightly makes my head hurt,\u201d says Aderin-Pocock.<\/p>\n

Galaxy cluster SMACS 0723<\/h2>\n
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NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

JWST has been busy making its own versions of these so-called deep-field images, such as this one of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, looking back further in time than Hubble ever could. \u201cBecause the universe is expanding, it means wavelengths that start off as visible light, as the universe expands, get shifted into infrared light. These galaxies existed so long ago and are taking so much time [for their light] to get to us, that looking at them with an infrared gaze gives us a different insight to what they were like originally.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cartwheel galaxy<\/h2>\n
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NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

As well as far-away galaxies, JWST can also zoom in on individual galaxies that are closer by, and that might help shed light on how our own Milky Way formed. \u201cIf you\u2019re a T. rex<\/em> trying to take a selfie, you might get a close up of your nose, or of your ear, but it\u2019s hard to get your full face because you can\u2019t move the camera far enough away,\u201d says Aderin-Pocock. The Cartwheel galaxy is the result of a collision between two smaller galaxies, but it might also help us understand the fate of the Milky Way in billions of years\u2019 time, when it will collide with the nearby Andromeda galaxy.<\/p>\n

RS Puppis<\/h2>\n
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One of the greatest puzzles in modern cosmology is the Hubble tension, which is a clash of values when astronomers try to measure how fast the universe is expanding using different techniques. One of these is based on special stars called Cepheid variables, such as RS Puppis, which flash with extreme regularity and were first mapped in detail using the Hubble telescope. Astronomers like Aderin-Pocock hope that JWST might help image them in greater detail and reveal whether the tension is a problem with previous telescopes or is hinting at something more fundamentally broken with our model of the universe.<\/p>\n

Galaxy cluster Abell 2744<\/h2>\n
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NASA\/CXC\/SAO\/L. Frattare & K. Arcand<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

We have never previously been able to look at supermassive black holes and the galaxies they reside in so early in the universe and with such rich detail. Abell 2744, a cluster of galaxies 4 billion light years from Earth also known as Pandora\u2019s Cluster, contains at least one of these black holes. JWST\u2019s ability to look at the gas and dust that surrounds it lets us understand how these black holes form and function which, when combined with other observations such as from X-ray telescopes, gives us a complete and detailed picture, says Aderin-Pocock.<\/p>\n

Barnard\u2019s galaxy, also known as NGC 6822<\/h2>\n
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ESA\/Webb, NASA & CSA, M. Meixner<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Aderin-Pocock has spent much of her career designing instruments for space, and so knows more than most about the impressive precision and engineering built into JWST. For instance, it can focus on tiny patches of the sky, even in crowded fields of stars, using what is called a microshutter array, tiny flaps around the size of a few human hairs that can block out unwanted light. The field of stars above contains Barnard\u2019s star, one of Earth\u2019s closest neighbours, which was recently found to have its own planet. JWST will be studying it further.<\/p>\n

Webb\u2019s Universe: The space telescope images that reveal our cosmic history<\/em><\/strong> by Maggie Aderin-Pocock is published by O\u2019Mara Books<\/strong><\/p>\n

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