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ESA Webb Telescope

Dec 9 • 9 tweets • 8 min read

1/ 🆕 Webb reaches new milestone 📍 in the quest for distant galaxies, having discovered some that date back to less than 400 million years after the #BigBang 🎇 The light from these galaxies has taken more than 13.4 billion years to reach us.

@UniofHerts

2/ “It was crucial to prove that these galaxies do, indeed, inhabit the early universe. It’s very possible for closer galaxies to masquerade as very distant galaxies,” said astronomer and co-author Emma Curtis-Lake from @UniofHerts UK

@UniofHerts

@UniofHerts 3/ The observed region in this image is 15 times larger than the deepest infrared images produced by @HUBBLE_space yet is even deeper and sharper at these wavelengths.

@UniofHerts

@UniofHerts @HUBBLE_space 4/ The #NIRCam image is only the size a human appears when viewed from a mile away (1.6 km). However, it teems with nearly 100,000 galaxies, each caught at some moment in their history, billions of years in the past.

@UniofHerts

@UniofHerts @HUBBLE_space 5/ Astronomers then used the #NIRSpec instrument to collect the light from 250 faint galaxies, allowing them to study the patterns imprinted on the spectrum by the atoms in each galaxy.

@UniofHerts

@UniofHerts @HUBBLE_space 6/ This yielded a precise measurement of each galaxy’s redshift & revealed the properties of the gas & stars in these galaxies. “These are by far the faintest infrared spectra ever taken,” said astronomer & co-author Stefano Carniani from @scuolanormale Italy.

@UniofHerts

@UniofHerts @HUBBLE_space @scuolanormale 7/ Astronomer & co-author Sandro Tacchella @Cambridge_Uni UK said “It is hard to understand galaxies without understanding the initial periods of their development. Much as with humans, so much of what happens later depends on the impact of these early generations of stars.

@UniofHerts

@UniofHerts @HUBBLE_space @scuolanormale @Cambridge_Uni 8/ Read more here: esawebb.org/images/JADES1/

#WebbSeesFarther

Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process.

@UniofHerts

@UniofHerts @HUBBLE_space @scuolanormale @Cambridge_Uni 9. 📷 @NASA @esa @csa_asc M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), Leah Hustak (STScI), Brant Robertson (UC Santa Cruz), S. Tacchella (Cambridge), E. Curtis-Lake (UOH), S. Carniani (Scuola Normale Superiore), JADES Collaboration

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More from @ESA_Webb

ESA Webb Telescope

@ESA_Webb

Dec 8

1/ 🆕 The Southern Ring Nebula comes into new view, as we combine near- and mid-infrared light from three filters from the Near-Infrared Camera #NIRCam and Mid-Infrared Instrument #MIRI on Webb. Read on 🧵👇

2/ In this image, Webb’s image of the Southern Ring Nebula highlights the very hot gas that surrounds the central stars. This hot gas is banded by a sharp ring of cooler gas, which appears in both images.

3/ In this image, Webb traces the star’s scattered outflows that have reached farther into the cosmos. Most of the molecular gas that lies outside the band of cooler gas is also cold. It is also far clumpier. Read about these images here: esawebb.org/images/souther…

Read 7 tweets

ESA Webb Telescope

@ESA_Webb

Nov 9

1/ 🆕 Webb has captured a portion of the dwarf galaxy Wolf–Lundmark–Melotte (WLM) using #NIRCam. The image demonstrates Webb’s remarkable ability to resolve faint stars outside the Milky Way.

2/ The galaxy lies roughly 3 million light-years away and was selected for observations as its gas is similar to that which made up galaxies in the early Universe.

3/#WebbSeesFarther This image shows this portion of the dwarf galaxy captured by Spitzer's Infrared Array Camera (left) and Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (right) 🆒

Read 5 tweets

ESA Webb Telescope

@ESA_Webb

Nov 8

1/ It's Webb FAQ time, where we answer your most frequently asked questions!

Q: What objects will Webb look at? Will it investigate my favourite galaxy?

2/ A: Webb's powerful infrared observations will see farther into our origins: from the formation of stars and planets, to the birth of the first galaxies in the early Universe.

3/ Webb will give us new insights into all sorts of objects, like the Southern Ring Nebula below, but you can check out its observing schedule at stsci.edu/jwst/science-e…

Read 4 tweets

ESA Webb Telescope

@ESA_Webb

Nov 8

1/ How did #MIRI become Webb’s Coolest Instrument? 👇

2/ Webb is renowned for its mid-infrared capabilities provided by #MIRI. Mid-infrared light, with wavelengths between 3 & 30 micrometres, allows us to see the Universe in a specific way, with objects that appear dark at visible wavelengths shining brightly in the mid-infrared.

3/ “It's such an exciting wavelength range in terms of the chemistry that you can do, and the way you can understand star formation and what's happening in the nuclei of galaxies,” says Gillian Wright, the Principal Investigator for the European Consortium behind #MIRI

Read 5 tweets

ESA Webb Telescope

@ESA_Webb

Oct 25

1/ This new Webb picture of the month shows IC 1623, a pair of interacting galaxies, plunging into one another. Their collision has ignited a spate of star formation creating new stars at a rate above 20 times that of the Milky Way. Read more 👉 esawebb.org/images/potm221… and 👇

@HUBBLE_space

2/ Astronomers used Webb's #MIRI, #NIRSpec, and #NIRCam instruments to investigate IC 1623. This will allow scientists to unravel the interactions in galactic ecosystems. These observations are also accompanied by data from other observatories, like @HUBBLE_space #BFFinSpace

@HUBBLE_space

@HUBBLE_space 3/ The luminous core of this merger is very bright and highly compact, so much so that Webb’s diffraction spikes appear atop the galaxy in this image. The 8-pronged diffraction spikes are created by the interaction of starlight with the physical structure of the telescope.

Read 4 tweets

ESA Webb Telescope

@ESA_Webb

Sep 21

1/ Webb turns its eye close to home by capturing its first image of Neptune, revealing the ice giant planet in a whole new light. This is the clearest view of this peculiar planet’s rings in more than 30 years. Read more:

esawebb.org/news/weic2214/

2/ The new image, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), shows the crisp view of the planet’s dynamic rings. The Webb images also clearly show Neptune’s fainter dust bands.

3/ Methane gas found inside Neptune is so strongly absorbing that the planet is quite dark at Webb wavelengths (0.6 to 5 microns) except where high-altitude clouds are present. Such clouds are prominent as bright streaks and spots, which reflect sunlight.

Read 6 tweets

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ESA Webb Telescope

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