James Webb Telescope. NASA showed the first image

Although in winter we had the opportunity to see the image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, one of the first “serious” color images of it was presented on Tuesday at 0.20 Poland time. The photo was revealed during a briefing at the White House. It was attended by US President Joe Biden and US Vice President Kamala Harris. The boss talked about the details NASA Bill Nelson. The image shows galaxy clusters in SMACS 0723.

The next premiere of the panels is scheduled for Tuesday at 10:30 AM EST (in Poland it will be at 4.30 PM). The event will be accompanied by press conferences for NASA scientists.

Earlier, NASA released a list of objects whose images and spectra will be displayed. They were selected by an international panel composed of representatives from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI).

In the case of SMACS 0723 we are dealing with the phenomenon of gravitational lensing. The massive cluster of galaxies amplifies and distorts the light of the objects behind them, allowing you to look at galaxies that are very distant and very faint.

The list includes the Carina Nebula (NGC 3372), the exoplanet WASP-96 b, the Southern Ring Nebula (NGC 3132, also known as the Shattered Eighth Nebula), the Stefan five-star group of galaxies, and SMACS 0723 gravitational lensing.

The Carina Nebula is one of the largest and brightest nebulae in the sky. It is located about 7,600 light-years away toward the constellation Kila. It is known to be the home of many massive stars.

WASP-96 is a gas giant planet located outside the solar system. It orbits a star 1,150 light-years from Earth, which makes it 3.4 days. The mass of the body is approximately half that of Jupiter, and it was discovered in 2014. In this case, NASA will display its ghost.

The Southern Ring Nebula belongs to the category of planetary nebulae. It’s a gas cloud around a dying star. This nebula is half a light year in diameter, and about 2,000 light years away.

On the other hand, Stephan’s Quintet is a very distant object, 290 million light-years away from us. It is the first compact group of galaxies discovered by Edward Stefan in 1877.

Last week, the US space agency showed the last test image sent by the telescope. However, it was not made by a space monitor, but by a precision guidance sensor (FGS).

The James Webb Space Telescope is a pioneering observatory established by scientists from NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency. The instrument is a more advanced and powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Astronomers hope that thanks to the telescope it will be possible, among other things, to study the atmospheres of planets outside the solar system in search of signs of life and to identify the first stars and galaxies that formed about 200 million years after the Big Bang.

The telescope weighing more than 6.3 tons was launched Universe On December 25, 2021, it reached the L2 point, which is located in an orbit of 1.5 million km from our planet, almost four times that of the Moon.