Exciting statement from NASA: The deepest photo of the universe was taken
1Exciting statement from NASA: The deepest photo of the universe was taken
NASA's new space telescope, James Webb, took the deepest photo of the universe. The agency stated that the images have been processed and will be shared with the public in a short time. The oldest frame ever taken shows 330 million years after the Big Bang.
NASA administrator Bill Nelson said the agency will reveal "the deepest image of our Universe ever taken" on July 12, thanks to the agency's new operational James Webb Space Telescope.
"If you think about it, this is more distant than humanity has ever seen before," said Nelson. James Wenn now orbits the Sun at a distance of one million 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope was launched in December last year.
Thanks to its massive primary mirror and instruments that focus the infrared, allowing dust and gas to pass through, Webb is able to peer into the universe more than any telescope before it.
"It will explore the atmospheres of objects in the solar system and exoplanets orbiting other stars, potentially giving us clues as to whether their atmospheres are similar to ours," Nelson added.
"It might answer some of the questions we have: Where do we come from? What else is out there? Who are we? And of course, it will answer some questions we don't even know what the questions are," said NASA administrator Nelson.
Webb's infrared capabilities allow him to see the Big Bang, which took place 13.8 billion years ago, more deeply in time.
As the universe expands, light from the oldest stars is shifting from the ultraviolet and visible wavelengths from which it radiates to longer infrared wavelengths. Hubble, which served for many years, did not have the technology to display them.
Currently, the earliest cosmological observations date to 330 million years after the Big Bang, but with Webb's capabilities, astronomers believe they will easily break the record.
20 YEARS LIFE
NASA deputy administrator Pam Melroy also announced that the telescope could remain operational for 20 years, doubling its originally projected lifetime.
"These 20 years will not only allow us to delve deeper into history and time, but we will also delve deeper into science because we have the opportunity to learn, grow, and make new observations," Melroy said.
NASA plans to share Webb's first spectroscopy of a distant planet known as an exoplanet on July 12, said Thomas Zurbuchen, a NASA resident.
It uses spectroscopy to analyze the chemical and molecular composition of distant objects. This method is used to characterize other properties of a planetary spectrum, such as whether it has an atmosphere and water, and what its ground is like.
Zurbuchen said, "From the very beginning, we will look at these worlds that keep us awake as we gaze at the starry sky at night, and as we look there we will wonder, is there life elsewhere?" he said.