Remember July 12, 2022, when, for the first time in the history of human civilization, people learned about the mysteries that the universe holds. the moment when mankind learned that alien species existed. NASA launched the James Webb Telescope into space roughly six months ago. Since then, it has sent some photos of space that have revealed startling new information about the universe’s true nature. In this blog, we’ll talk about the discoveries that have been made as a result of these images and the surrounding information.
1. First Picture (first discovery)
This is the first image from the James Webb Space Telescope, which may lead you to believe that other telescopes take pictures similar to this. However, this image shows the oldest galaxy in the universe, which originated some 13.1 billion years ago. Although the name of this galaxy has not yet been published by NASA, this image is known as a galaxy cluster (SMACS 0723). Even though this image is only a small portion of the entire universe, it nevertheless comprises roughly 5,000 galaxies. The earliest light in the universe is said to have started travelling when gases and dust clouds were fusing together and transforming into stars roughly billions of years ago.
Around six months ago, after traveling millions of kilometers, it arrived at the Webb telescope. Since regular telescopes can only focus on the brighter objects in a scene, taking the image previously indicated was not an easy task. However, they used a new type of technology in Webb’s telescope called “NIRcam.” The main function of this technology is to deflect light from brighter objects so that darker objects in the scene remain in focus.
2. Second Discovery ( Existence of Alien Life)
Let’s discuss the James Webb Telescope’s finding of an extraterrestrial planet, where the likelihood of alien life is thought to be about 90% based on this image ( SPECTRUM OF THE GAS GIANT PLANET WASP-96B).
About 1,150 thousand light years separate this planet from Earth. This picture is the first exoplanet spectrum ever captured by astronomers. A spectrum essentially finds chemicals on a planet’s surface that indicate if water, oxygen, methane, and carbon dioxide molecules—all necessary for life support—are present or not.
Since water is necessary for life support and the first wave length spectrum of this planet revealed a high concentration of water vapours, scientists believe that there is a high probability of alien life existing there. Further research will lead them to believe that other molecules required for life will also be present on this planet.
3. Third Discovery (Dying Star)
James Webb’s telescope just snapped a picture of a dying star that is roughly 2,000 light years away from the earth during a time when fresh life is developing on one side. Now, some people might imagine an explosion from the phrase “dying star,” but that’s not what’s happening in this situation. The star in this image is precisely doing what happens when a typical star, like our Sun, approaches its final stage of evolution and begins ejecting its inner mass out over millions of years.
Every layer in this image indicates how much mass the star has ejected, and the layer closest to the star indicates how much mass it has recently ejected.
4. Fourth Discovery
The left-most galaxy in this image is around 40 million light years from Earth, while all the other galaxies are about 290 million light years away. This image was created by combining nearly a thousand different images into one. The orange object in the centre is thought by scientists to be a black hole with a mass that is approximately 29 million times greater than that of the sun.
5. Fifth Discovery (New-born stars)
This image from Webb’s Telescope depicts the formation of young stars; actually, this is the edge of a gaseous cavity in a nebula that is around 7 light years (66,225 crores km) high. The heated, ionized gases that the nebula radiates are what are creating these enormous mountains.
This image clearly shows indicates the stars forming regions.
This image, which the Hubble telescope had already recorded, was taken by Webb’s telescope. Scientists were able to learn about a variety of features of the universe thanks to this telescope, which was launched in 1990 to reveal the universe’s mysteries, but it had a flaw: the photos it captured blurred as they were sent to the scientists. In order to resolve this issue, James Webb’s Telescope was launched in 2021. From this, scientists were unable to reach a clear conclusion. This telescope outperformed the Hubble in every way and provided NASA with a variety of images of the cosmos.
Webb’s telescope rendered it exceedingly clear, revealing to astronomers more than 5,000 galaxies in a single frame. This is the image that the Hubble telescope got stuck on and is known as EXTREME DEEP FIELD.
