James Webb Space Telescope Celebrates First Year of Science With Close-up on Birth of Sun-like Stars
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NASA’s Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet, Webb’s First Deep Field is galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Webb_Space_Telescope#/media/File:Webb’s_First_Deep_Field_(adjusted).jpg (Attribution: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScl, Public Domain license: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing#Material_in_the_public_domain, Presented at: WindermereSun.com)
What looks much like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals previously obscured areas of star birth.
Called the Cosmic Cliffs, the region is actually the edge of a gigantic, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, roughly 7,600 light-years away. The cavernous area has been carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely massive, hot, young stars located in the center of the bubble, above the area shown in this image. The high-energy radiation from these stars is sculpting the nebula’s wall by slowly eroding it away.
NIRCam – with its crisp resolution and unparalleled sensitivity – unveils hundreds of previously hidden stars, and even numerous background galaxies. Several prominent features in this image are described below.
• The “steam” that appears to rise from the celestial “mountains” is actually hot, ionized gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula due to intense, ultraviolet radiation.
• Dramatic pillars rise above the glowing wall of gas, resisting the blistering ultraviolet radiation from the young stars.
• Bubbles and cavities are being blown by the intense radiation and stellar winds of newborn stars.
• Protostellar jets and outflows, which appear in gold, shoot from dust-enshrouded, nascent stars.
• A “blow-out” erupts at the top-center of the ridge, spewing gas and dust into the interstellar medium.
• An unusual “arch” appears, looking like a bent-over cylinder.
This period of very early star formation is difficult to capture because, for an individual star, it lasts only about 50,000 to 100,000 years – but Webb’s extreme sensitivity and exquisite spatial resolution have chronicled this rare event.
Located roughly 7,600 light-years away, NGC 3324 was first catalogued by James Dunlop in 1826. Visible from the Southern Hemisphere, it is located at the northwest corner of the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), which resides in the constellation Carina. The Carina Nebula is home to the Keyhole Nebula and the active, unstable supergiant star called Eta Carinae.
NIRCam was built by a team at the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center. Public Domain license: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Licensing#Material_in_the_public_domain. Presented at: WindermereSun.com
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NASA is celebrating one year of images from the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA administrator Bill Nelson joined CBS News to talk about some of the images the telescope has captured, including one released Wednesday of a stellar nursery, in the video published on July 12, 2023, by CBS News, as “Celebrating one year of images from the James Webb Space Telescope“, below:
Wednesday marks a year since the world first started seeing spectacular images of the cosmos that were captured by the powerful James Webb Space Telescope. But getting those images is only part of the important work being done by the $10 billion telescope. Science correspondent Miles O’Brien reports, in the video published on July 12, 2023, by PBS NewsHour, as “James Webb Space Telescope prompts scientists to rethink understanding of the universe“, below:
NASA released a new image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope of the closest star-forming region to Earth, the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. CNN’s Jake Tapper speaks to NASA astrophysicist Dr. Amber Straughn about the images, in the video published on July 12, 2023, by CNN, as “See the stunning new NASA image that shows star birthplace“, below:
NASA has published a stunning new image from the James Webb Telescope to mark one year since it started sending images from deep space. It shows a small star-forming region in a complex of interstellar clouds about 390 lightyears from Earth. CBS News senior national correspondent Mark Strassmann reports, in the video published on July 12, 2023, by CBS News, as “NASA shares new image from James Webb Telescope“, below:
In the past year, we’ve learned more about the universe than ever before, both in our solar system and far beyond, but we’re still just getting started. To celebrate this breathtaking year and everything coming next, we invite you to see something new and go on a journey through the cosmos with a NASA expert, in the video published on July 12, 2023, by KPRC 2 Click2Houston, as “James Webb Space Telescope Celebrates One Year“, below:
NASA is celebrating the James Webb Space Telescope’s first year of science with the release of a new image. Launched in late 2021, Webb is the largest, most powerful telescope ever sent into space. Its first images and science results were released by NASA with much fanfare a year ago this week, in the video published on July 12, 2023, by AP, as “LIVE| NASA marks a year of Webb Space Telescope discoveries“, below:
To better understand the James Webb Space Telescope, please refer to the excerpt from wikipedia, in italics, below:
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope currently conducting infrared astronomy. As the largest telescope in space, it is equipped with high-resolution and high-sensitivity instruments, allowing it to view objects too old, distant, or faint for the Hubble Space Telescope.[9] This enables investigations across many fields of astronomy and cosmology, such as observation of the first stars, the formation of the first galaxies, and detailed atmospheric characterization of potentially habitable exoplanets.[10][11][12]
The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) led Webb’s design and development and partnered with two main agencies: the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA). The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in Maryland managed telescope development, while the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore on the Homewood Campus of Johns Hopkins University currently operates Webb. The primary contractor for the project was Northrop Grumman. The telescope is named after James E. Webb, who was the administrator of NASA from 1961 to 1968 during the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on 25 December 2021 on an Ariane 5 rocket from Kourou, French Guiana, and arrived at the Sun–Earth L2 Lagrange point in January 2022. The first Webb image was released to the public via a press conference on 11 July 2022.[13]
Webb’s primary mirror consists of 18 hexagonal mirror segments made of gold-plated beryllium, which combined create a 6.5-meter-diameter (21 ft) mirror, compared with Hubble’s 2.4 m (7 ft 10 in). This gives Webb a light-collecting area of about 25 square meters, about six times that of Hubble. Unlike Hubble, which observes in the near ultraviolet and visible (0.1 to 0.8 μm), and near infrared (0.8–2.5 μm)[14] spectra, Webb observes a lower frequency range, from long-wavelength visible light (red) through mid-infrared (0.6–28.3 μm). The telescope must be kept extremely cold, below 50 K (−223 °C; −370 °F), such that the infrared light emitted by the telescope itself does not interfere with the collected light. It is deployed in a solar orbit near the Sun–Earth L2 Lagrange point, about 1.5 million kilometers (930,000 mi) from Earth, where its five-layer sunshield protects it from warming by the Sun, Earth, and Moon.
Initial designs for the telescope, then named the Next Generation Space Telescope, began in 1996. Two concept studies were commissioned in 1999, for a potential launch in 2007 and a US$1 billion budget. The program was plagued with enormous cost overruns and delays; a major redesign in 2005 led to the current approach, with construction completed in 2016 at a total cost of US$10 billion. The high-stakes nature of the launch and the telescope’s complexity were remarked upon by the media, scientists, and engineers. In July 2023, astronomers reported that the first year of JWST operations were a considerable success.[15]
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