There has been a lot of talk about the James Webb Telescope this year. The most powerful space observatory will complete its first year and a half of operation in 2023. What we already knew, he now showed us with impressive accuracy. And in these unexplored corners, he opened up worlds for us that we didn’t even know we could reach.
This year, for example, we saw for the first time a postcard of Saturn showing off its 13 rings thanks to the instrument’s infrared light sensors. New details of the death of some stars were also revealed. And it gave us an unprecedented image of the heart of the Milky Way, some 25,000 light-years from our Earth, with a level of resolution and sensitivity that only the James Webb Telescope can achieve.
But not to mention the existence of something that we didn’t even suspect existed. We discover that there is an extremely hot planet where it rains sand. And that another exoplanet, which is 8.6 times more massive than Earth, is potentially watery and has a promising environment. look for life.
“The James Webb Space Telescope changed the way humanity looks at space.NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said last July as it completed its first year of operation. “It has allowed scientists around the world to ask and answer questions they never imagined before,” Nelson said. Of all
The James Webb Telescope is designed for a minimum useful life of five years, which can be extended to a total of 10 years. So there’s still a lot to see. To cap off the year, we’ll share with you four of Webb’s record-breaking discoveries this year.
1. The James Webb Telescope discovered the oldest black hole
Yes, a group of scientists have discovered the oldest black hole thanks to the James Webb Telescope. It is believed to have been created approximately 470 million years after the Big Bang. The discovery was made possible thanks to combined technology Webb and the Chandra X-ray Observatory, both are operated by NASA.
The universe is 13.7 billion years old. Therefore, this black hole is 13.2 billion years old. In other words, It appeared when the age of the Universe was only 3% of its current age.
The black hole was captured in an early stage of growth that has never been seen before, and its mass is similar to that of its host galaxy. It is located in a galaxy called UHZ1, which is in the direction of the galaxy cluster Abell 2744. And there is another fact that surprised researchers: it is huge. It is 10 times larger than the black hole in our Milky Way..
2. The James Webb Telescope discovered forming stars at a record distance
One of the latest is the discovery of young stars in a galaxy 2.8 million light-years from Earth. This is millions of light years further than any observation of newly formed stars. done so far.
These “young stellar objects” are located in the southern arm of the Triangulum spiral galaxy (M33). The astronomers used the James Webb Telescope’s mid-infrared imager (MIRI). They found 793 of these young stars hidden in huge clouds of gas and dust.
“Young stellar objects” outside the Milky Way and Magellanic Clouds were not imaged. They are the gold standard for tracking star formation. in galaxies.
3. Smallest free-floating brown dwarf
The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered the smallest free-floating brown dwarf star. It is located about a thousand light years from our planet, along with other similar stars. Brown dwarfs are sometimes called failed stars: they form through gravitational collapse but never gain enough mass to undergo nuclear fusion.
This star weighs only three to four times the mass of Jupiter. It was discovered in the star cluster IC 348, about a thousand light years away in the Perseus star forming region. Webb’s infrared sensitivity allowed it to detect fainter objects that were invisible to ground-based telescopes.
“The basic question that you will find in all astronomy textbooks is: which stars are the smallest? That’s what we’re trying to answer,” said Kevin Luman, lead author of the study and a scientist at Pennsylvania State University.
4. James Webb Finds Hundreds of Ancient Galaxies
The James Webb Telescope has discovered hundreds of ancient galaxies in two small patches of sky: one in the constellation Ursa Minor and the other in the Fornax cluster. There were more than 700 young galaxies in this zone, which show what the cosmos looked like at the beginning of its existence.
These regions have been observed before, but 93% of these galaxies were observed for the first time this year thanks to Webb. “These are the galaxies that begin the process of creating the elements and complexity that we see in the world around us today,” said Kevin Hainline, assistant research professor at the Steward Observatory in Arizona and lead author of the study published in June.
Source: Hiper Textual
