The James-Webb telescope, the largest ever sent into space, has just delivered its first images.
Shots that will allow us to learn more about the birth of the Universe but also the death of stars similar to the sun.
For Toulouse astrophysicist Olivier Berné, whose research will use observations of the Orion Nebula by the James-Webb telescope, these first shots are promising.
A tiny part of the sky, no bigger than a grain of sand held at arm's length from the ground but which, thanks to the James-Webb Telescope (JWST), reveals thousands and thousands of galaxies, with more different shapes each other.
The pictures unveiled since Monday by the largest space telescope, positioned 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, allow us to see galaxies that are 13 billion light-years away and give an idea of the Universe just after the Big Bang.
The first image unveiled by Joe Biden on Monday evening shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, observed for 12.5 hours by the telescope.
What looks very much like bright crosses are stars and the spirals and other bright dots are galaxies, a planet being a tiny part of this tiny dot.
What a way to feel tiny.
And to give work for years to all the astronomers who have been working on the Hubble data until now.
From the origins of the planets to the death of a star
“In one pixel of this picture, we have hundreds of thousands of solar systems, it gives us a view of a slice of the Universe and tells us about its structure.
Webb is a time machine, looking far into the past and seeing the object as it was 13 billion years ago.
The Spitzer telescope was already observing in the infrared, with James-Webb we are going to have a fineness of size increased by eight.
It's as if we went from an impressionist painting of the Universe to a realistic painting or as if we put glasses on a nearsighted person, everything is clearer", explains Olivier Berné, CNRS researcher at the Institute for Research in astrophysics and planetology of Toulouse (IRAP).
Here is a closeup: pic.twitter.com/5ATAxVI1LT
— Jason Short (@jason4short) July 11, 2022
Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent
By clicking on "
I ACCEPT
", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners
I ACCEPT
And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.
More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.
These infrared images, the deepest and sharpest of the distant universe to date, therefore open up new perspectives.
Thanks to its 6.5 m mirror, the JWST makes it possible to see more details and the faintest objects ever observed.
This Tuesday, while the other first images of the telescope are unveiled at the other end of the Earth by NASA, Olivier Berné is delighted with his first signals, which are already very promising.
Especially since his team is one of thirteen whose international program has been selected to use the data collected by James-Webb.
In September, for forty hours, the telescope will thus point to their subject of study, the Orion Nebula, a nursery of stars.
Images of Stephan's Quintet 290 million light-years away
While waiting to find out what it has in store for him, the Toulouse researcher will be able to look at one of the other shots of the day: the Carina Nebula.
“She is a little similar, but further.
With that of Orion, we will have more details on planets which are from 10 to 100,000 years old, which is nothing compared to the age of our solar system.
Watching them is a way to go back to the question of our origins, I am convinced that it will lead us to have new questions about the origin of life.
With the observation of the southern ring, a star at the end of its life, it is also a representation of what will become of the sun at the end of its life”, continues the astrophysicist.
This expanding cloud of gas surrounds a dying star and is 2,000 light-years from Earth.
Much further away, nearly 290 million light-years away, the JWST picked up Stephan's Quintet.
✋🏼 Galactic high five!
In Webb's image of Stephan's Quintet, we see 5 galaxies, 4 of which interact.
(The left galaxy is in the foreground!) Webb will revolutionize our knowledge of star formation & gas interactions in these galaxies: https://t.co/tlougFWg8B #UnfoldTheUniverse pic.twitter.com/b2kH1tSyMs
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) July 12, 2022
Access to this content has been blocked to respect your choice of consent
By clicking on "
I ACCEPT
", you accept the deposit of cookies by external services and will thus have access to the content of our partners
I ACCEPT
And to better remunerate 20 Minutes, do not hesitate to accept all cookies, even for one day only, via our "I accept for today" button in the banner below.
More information on the Cookie Management Policy page.
Behind this poetic name hides a group of galaxies which is in the constellation of Pegasus, observed for the first time by the Frenchman Edouard Stephan in 1878. Made up of billions of stars, they are outside our Milky Way. “It allows us to understand how the Universe was formed, how it evolves and the interaction between the large stars.
When two galaxies meet, the stars cross but do not collide.
There is a majestic side,” assures Simon Pujol, mediator at the Cité de l'espace who has created a space dedicated to news about the James-Webb telescope.
Our space file
Soon, thanks to the observation of the gas giant planet WASP-96b, we will learn more about the chemical composition of its atmosphere, the presence of certain molecules, and why not the discovery of water or sodium. .
And why the habitability of other planets.
So much information and snapshots that will gradually completely reconstruct the representation of the cosmos that we have, coming mostly from the images that Hubble has offered us in recent years.
Science
A "super thundermoon" will light up the sky on Wednesday: When and how to observe it?
Science
The James-Webb Telescope reveals a stunning glimpse into the outer reaches of the universe
Science
Toulouse
Space
Astronomy
Astrophysics
Universe
Occitania