Star Formation and Evolution with the Jumping Telescope (JWST) — A Discovery of the Pillars of Creation in the Milky Way
The results of star formation and evolution are possible thanks to the sharp resolution of the JWST. An astronomer at the University of Toronto says the amount of details seen in the Universe is mind-blowing, compared to what we see with Hubble. She and her colleagues were able to spot the sparkles that they dubbed the Sparkler by using the telescope’s keen vision, and discovered that it was some of the oldest star clusters ever discovered. Other studies have unveiled details such as the hearts of galaxies where monster black holes lurk.
After 20 years, 10 billion dollars and a million miles from Earth, the telescope launched on Christmas Day last year. The launch was stupendously successful, as was the complex unfolding procedure in space that put the telescope into operational mode.
Klaus Pontoppidan, a project scientist working on the James Webb, wrote on Twitter that the team wanted to capture the Pillars of Creation using the new space telescope after seeing popular demand for it.
The M16 is located in the plane of the Milky Way and there are so many stars. Pontoppidan wrote a letter. “This image was taken in exactly the same way as the cosmic cliffs, and covers an area the same size on the sky.”
The red spots at the edges of some pillars come from young stars, estimated to be a few hundred thousand years old, that shoot out supersonic jets which excite surrounding hydrogen molecules and create the crimson glow.
Observational evidence of cosmological breaking in the early universe: the case of JWST’s Big-Bang Telescope
Before James Webb’s success, the telescope had to endure more than 20 years of technical difficulties, cost overruns, delays, and threats from Congress to kill it altogether. Critics were skeptical of the large size of the main mirror and of its ability to collect more light than the Hubble.
Astronomers began asking whether the profusion of early big things defies the current understanding of the cosmos. According to some researchers and media outlets, the telescope observations were breaking the standard model of cosmology which is a well-tested set of equations called the lambda cold dark matter. It has since become clear, however, that the ΛCDM model is resilient. Astronomers are rethinking how the stars are made as a result of the JWST findings. The case of the too-early galaxies will not turn out to be anything but a blip on the radar, despite the fact that the telescope has not yet broken cosmology.
The detection of very early, bright galaxies is surprising because it helps to understand what physicists know about the universe.
“This is amazing — we are seeing such luminous galaxies at early times,” Garth Illingworth, an author of one of the new reports who is an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said at a 17 November press briefing.
But it works — and spectacularly so. “I feel really lucky to be alive as a scientist to work with this amazing telescope,” says Laura Kreidberg, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany.
The investigation of Mars was a big one this year. Mars is a planet that has hosted several rovers, landers, and other scientific equipment over the years. That means astronomers have a fairly good understanding of its atmospheric composition and are beginning to learn about its weather system. Mars is also particularly difficult for a sensitive space-based telescope like JWST to study because it is so bright and so close. The factors made it the perfect testing ground to see what the new telescope could do.
The telescope has also proved its worth for studying objects in Earth’s celestial neighbourhood. At the symposium, astronomer Geronimo Villanueva at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, showed new images of Saturn’s moon Enceladus. Scientists knew that Enceladus has a buried ocean whose water sometimes squirts out of fractures in its icy crust, but JWST revealed that the water plume envelops the entire moon and well beyond. Separately, engineers have also figured out a way to get JWST to track rapidly moving objects, such as Solar System planets, much better than expected. That led to new studies such as observations of the DART spacecraft’s deliberate crash into an asteroid in September, says Naomi Rowe-Gurney, an astronomer also at Goddard.
Applications are now open for astronomers to pitch their ideas for observations during JWST’s second year of operations, which starts in July. The next round could give rise to more creative uses for the telescope since it is now known what it is capable of.
There are still problems despite the good news. Primary among them is a lack of funding to support scientists working on JWST data, says López-Morales. She says that she and her team can do the science, have the skills, develop tools and make discoveries that are on a very thin budget. “Which is not ideal right now.”
Rowe-Gurney said that the telescope is opening up a new realm of astronomy and that it will answer all the questions she had for her PhD.
As Christmas approached last year, astronomers and space fans around the globe gathered to watch the much-anticipated launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope was not without its share of controversy, from being way over budget and behind schedule to being named after a former NASA administrator accused of homophobia.
The Discovery of Supermassive Black Holes and Early Galaxies in the Early Universe with the JWT Spectrometer
These early galaxies are identified using surveys and deep field images which use a computer program called JWT to look at patches of the sky which might look empty at first glance. These areas don’t have bright objects like solar system planets and are located away from the center of our galaxy, allowing astronomers to look out into the depths of space to spot these extremely far-off objects.
Astronomers have a good idea of the lifecycle of stars thanks to the knowledge they have gained from JWST. Exactly how clouds of dust and gas collapse to form knots is a topic that needs more research. They are also learning about the regions where stars form and why stars tend to form in groups.
The telescope observes the universe in infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye, and is capable of detecting the faint light from ancient stars and galaxies. The observatory can see back in time to about 13 billion years ago. (Scientists have determined the universe is about 13.7 billion years old.)
“We looked into the very early universe for the first time and had no idea what we were going to find,” Leja said. “It turns out we found something so unexpected it actually creates problems for science. It questions the whole picture of early galaxy formation.
“This is our first glimpse back this far, so it’s important that we keep an open mind about what we are seeing,” Leja said. “While the data indicates they are likely galaxies, I think there is a real possibility that a few of these objects turn out to be obscured supermassive black holes. We discovered that the known mass in stars at this time period is up to 100 times greater than we had thought. This is still an astounding change even if the sample is cut in half.
It is possible to determine the true distance of the galaxies, as well as the reasons why it grew so quickly by taking a spectrum image of the galaxy, which splits light into different wavelength to determine various elements, said Leja. The spectroscopy data would provide a more detailed look at the galaxies and their impressive size.
These whoppers are not expected to be found by the research team of Ivo Labbe of Australia’s Swinburne University of Technology.
“While most galaxies in this era are still small and only gradually growing larger over time,” he said in an email, “there are a few monsters that fast-track to maturity. Why this is the case or how this would work is unknown.”
The Six Objects that Look Like Millions of Times More Than Our Sun: The Case For Supermassive Black Hole Galaxies
Each of the six objects looks to weigh billions of times more than our sun. The scientists said in the journal Nature that the weight of all the stars in one of them could be 100 billion times greater than the weight of the sun.
The researchers are cautious when they call these candidate massive galaxies because they are still waiting for official confirmation. Leja said it’s possible that a few of the objects might not be galaxies, but obscured supermassive black holes.
“Some of them may be small, but at least some of them will turn out to be gigantic,” Labbe said. The next year will let us know.
The original story has been changed with the permission of the Simons Foundation, which seeks to improve public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in the physical and life sciences.
The origin of the first stars: the rabbit in Precambrian strata at the early stages of the epoch of reionization
How could stars ignite inside superheated clouds of gas so soon after the Big Bang? How could they make themselves into such huge structures? Finding such big, bright, early galaxies seems akin to finding a fossilized rabbit in Precambrian strata. “There are no big things at early times. It takes a while to get to big things,” said Mike Boylan-Kolchin, a theoretical physicist at the University of Texas, Austin.
Dark matter makes up most of the material that flew apart after the Bigbang. At first, it has a strong influence over the universe. Cold dark matter was thrown about the universe indiscriminately in the standard picture. In some areas its distribution was denser, and in these regions it began collapsing into clumps. Visible matter, meaning atoms, clustered around the clumps of dark matter. The first stars were formed as the atoms cooled off. During the so-called epoch of reionization, neutral hydrogen was recharged by these new sources of radiation. A large and complex structure grew, creating a vast web of galaxies.