The incredibly sharp image of a nearby galaxy captured by NASA’s new $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope demonstrates a major leap in space photography
- NASA has shared side-by-side images taken by its Webb and Spitzer telescopes
- Both feature the Large Magellanic Cloud – a galaxy orbiting the Milky Way
- But the Webb image captures the foreground stars much sharper
- It also shows details such as interstellar gas clouds and background stars
NASA has shared an incredibly sharp image of a nearby galaxy taken by its new James Webb Space Telescope.
For comparison, it also shared an image of the same galaxy taken by its now-defunct Spitzer Space Telescope, which launched in 2003 and was the first to provide high-resolution images of the near- and mid-infrared Universe.
While the Spitzer image shows a blur of about seven nearby stars that reside in the Large Magellanic Cloud – a satellite galaxy orbiting the Milky Way – the James Webb image captures the foreground stars in sharp detail.
It also reveals more subtle details like wispy clouds of interstellar gas and hundreds of background stars and galaxies in what NASA calls “unprecedented detail.”
The two images illustrate the tremendous advances in space photography possible with the new James Webb telescope, now that all four of its scientific instruments are in “perfect alignment”.
Two images of the Large Magellanic Cloud taken by Spitzer (left) and Webb (right). The Webb image shows not only the foreground stars in sharp detail, but also more subtle details such as wispy clouds of interstellar gas and hundreds of stars and galaxies in the background
Instruments of the James Webb Space Telescope
NIRCam (Near InfraRed Camera) is an infrared imaging device from the edge of the visible to the near infrared
NIRSpec (Near InfraRed Spectrograph) will also perform spectroscopy over the same wavelength range.
MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument) will measure the mid to long infrared wavelength range from 5 to 27 microns.
FGS/NIRISS (Fine Guidance Sensor and Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph) is used to stabilize the observatory’s line of sight during scientific observations.
“I am pleased to report that the telescope alignment was completed with even better performance than we expected,” said Michael McElwain, James Webb Space Telescope project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. according to CBS News.
“We have basically achieved perfect telescope alignment. There is no adjustment to the telescope’s optics that would significantly improve our scientific performance.’
The $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope was launched in December 2021 and is expected to be fully operational by the end of June 2022.
It is intended to replace the Hubble Space Telescope as NASA’s flagship mission in astrophysics.
The telescope consists of 18 hexagonal mirror segments joined together to form a large mirror 21 feet wide.
During its at least ten years in orbit, Webb will be used by teams of astronomers to study a variety of celestial phenomena, from exoplanets to black holes.
It can see further into the history of the universe than any space telescope before it, in part because of its location 930,000 miles from Earth.
James Webb has four key instruments on board – a near-infrared camera (NIRCam), a near-infrared spectrograph (NIRSpec), a mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) and fine guidance sensor, and a near-infrared imager and slitless spectrograph (FGS/NIRISS).
The test image was captured by MIRI, Webb’s coldest instrument, at 7.7 microns.
It is compared to an earlier image of the same target taken at 8.0 microns with NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope infrared array camera.
SLIDE TO REVEAL: The same view of the Large Magellanic Cloud — a satellite galaxy orbiting the Milky Way — taken by the Spitzer and Webb Space Telescopes
The Webb Space Telescope consists of 18 hexagonal mirror segments joined together to form a large mirror 21 feet wide.
NASA said Webb, with its significantly larger primary mirror and improved detectors, will allow scientists to see the infrared sky with improved clarity, opening the door to even more discoveries.
Scientists predict that Webb can image distant objects up to 100 times too faint for the Hubble Space Telescope.
With its instruments aligned, the Webb telescope is now awaiting a final instrument calibration before officially beginning its study of distant stars later this summer.
In July, the telescope will share its first series of scientific images targeting galaxies and objects that “highlight all the themes of Webb science… from the early universe to galaxies through time to the life cycle of stars and other worlds,” said Klaus Pontoppidan, Webb project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute.
THE JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE
The James Webb Telescope has been described as a “time machine” that could help unlock the mysteries of our universe.
The telescope will be used to look back to the first galaxies born in the early Universe more than 13.5 billion years ago and to observe the sources of stars, exoplanets and even the moons and planets of our solar system.
The giant telescope, which has already cost more than $7 billion (£5 billion), is believed to be the successor to the Hubble orbiting space telescope
The James Webb Telescope and most of its instruments have an operating temperature of about 40 Kelvin – about minus 387 Fahrenheit (minus 233 degrees Celsius).
Officials say the cost could exceed the $8 billion (£5.6 billion) program ceiling set by Congress. The space agency has already poured $7 billion (£5 billion) into the telescope.
When it is launched in 2021, it will be the world’s largest and most powerful telescope capable of looking back 200 million years after the Big Bang.