Before the release of its initial photographs, NASA disclosed that the James Webb Telescope will observe a variety of magnificent celestial phenomena, including distant star nurseries, an extrasolar giant planet, and a galaxy cluster 290 million light-years away.
The space agency identifies five primary objectives for the first set of full-color scientific photos to be released by the $10 billion telescopes on Tuesday, July 12 at 10:30 a.m. EDT.
Eric Smith, a Webb program scientist at NASA who has worked on the telescope team since its inception in the mid-1990s, says, ‘Even after working on the program for many years, I’m as excited as everyone else who is anticipating the release of the first beautiful full-color images and data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope – an audacious endeavor in partnership with the European and Canadian space agencies.’
The Carina Nebula is one of the brightest and largest nebulae in the universe, located around 7,600 light-years away in the constellation Carina.
Nebulae are stellar nurseries where stars are born, and this one is home to numerous enormous stars, some of which are larger than the sun.
The Southern Ring Nebula, commonly known as the ‘Eight-Burst’ nebula, is a planetary nebula, which is essentially an explosive gas cloud encircling a dying star.
According to NASA, it has a diameter of over half a light-year and is around 2,000 light-years from Earth.
The next planet on the list is WASP-96 b, a gas-dominated gas giant planet outside our solar system.
This planet is 1,150 light-years away from Earth and completes one orbit around its star every 3.4 days.
WASP-96 b, which has nearly half the mass of Jupiter and was discovered in 2014, has a mass of approximately 0.5 Jupiters.
In 1787, Stephan’s Quintet, found in the constellation Pegasus, was the first compact galaxy group ever discovered.
NASA reports that four of the five galaxies are engaged in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters.
NASA said on SMACS 0723, that the final target:
Massive foreground galaxy clusters magnify and distort the light of objects behind them, allowing for a deep field view of distant and intrinsically faint galaxy populations.
What questions might Webb’s insights raise that will pique our interest in the unimaginable? Smith inquires.
Soon, we will begin to grasp how Webb will alter our understanding of the universe.
