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NASA Webb Telescope
@NASAWebb
Launched: Dec. 25, 2021. First images revealed: July 12, 2022. Follow along as the world's most powerful space telescope continues to #UnfoldTheUniverse!
Lagrange Point 2webb.nasa.govJoined April 2009
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NASA Webb Telescope
@NASAWebb
No sugar or spice, but everything ice ❄️ In this molecular cloud (a birthplace of stars & planets), Webb scientists found a variety of icy ingredients. These frozen molecules, like carbon dioxide and methane, could go on to become building blocks of life. go.nasa.gov/3Xy07Vd
A Webb image of the central region of the Chamaeleon I dark molecular cloud, which resides 630 light-years away. This image primarily shows blue smoky wisps on a dark background. The left top side additionally features orange and white wisps. Just below them are four bright points of light. Three are orange and one is a mix of white and orange. Each of these points have Webb’s signature 8-point diffraction spikes emanating around them in long, thick orange lines, so that they look like huge snowflakes. Scattered throughout the image are distant stars or galaxies in shades of red, orange and blue, seen as tiny blobs.
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NASA Webb Telescope
@NASAWebb
Webb also revealed the first clear signatures of crystalline water ice in the Chariklo system (Chariklo and its rings). Most of this data comes from Chariklo rather than its rings, but future observations may help us isolate what the rings are made of.
Labeled graphic showing the surface composition of solar system object Chariklo and its rings, using data from Webb’s NIRSpec instrument. A line graph features a jagged white line with three valleys, two small dips and one very large dip towards the right. These dips are highlighted with transparent blue bars, and they represent signatures of water ice. This graph plots Brightness of Light on the vertical y-axis (moving up from dim to bright), versus Wavelength of Light in microns on the horizontal x-axis (running from 0.6 to 4.1 microns). In the background is a grayscale illustration of Chariklo and its rings, as seen from an oblique angle.
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NASA Webb Telescope
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Chariklo has two thin rings — the first rings ever detected (in 2013) around a small Solar System object. When Webb observed the occultation, scientists measured dips in the brightness of the star. These dips corresponded exactly as predicted to the shadows of Chariklo’s rings.
Graphic highlighting data from Webb’s NIRCam instrument. At the top, a labeled diagram shows the change in relative position of a background star with respect to an icy body, Chariklo, and its rings. Chariklo is represented as a central dark circle, and its rings as two thin white loops around it. Just above this central circle and behind the rings, a series of tiny circles represent the star’s path behind Chariklo’s rings. The star appears to move behind the rings at two points along the path. Below the diagram is a graph showing the change in relative brightness of the star between 9:33 a.m. and 9:41 a.m. in Baltimore, Maryland, on Oct. 18, 2022. Two dips in brightness of the star, shown in the graph as narrow valleys, line up with where the star disappears behind the rings in the diagram. The brightness of the star is an otherwise constant line.
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NASA Webb Telescope Retweeted
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@NASA
LIVE NOW: #OTD one year ago, the
@NASAWebb
telescope made it to its home 1 million miles away. How has it revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos since? Ask mission experts your questions on air, or tag them #UnfoldTheUniverse.
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NASA
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It's been nearly a year since @NASAWebb arrived at its destination 1 million miles away. It completed the most complex deployment ever attempted in space, and returned the deepest infrared image ever seen. Have questions? Tag them #UnfoldTheUniverse. twitter.com/i/spaces/1OyKA
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NASA Webb Telescope
@NASAWebb
Go big *and* go home. 🏠 On this day last year, Webb successfully completed the million-mile journey to its current home base. Since then, it’s hit one home run after another — from the deepest, sharpest infrared image taken to its first rocky, Earth-size exoplanet confirmation.
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NASA Webb Telescope
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🏠 Home, home on Lagrange! We successfully completed our burn to start #NASAWebb on its orbit of the 2nd Lagrange point (L2), about a million miles (1.5 million km) from Earth. It will orbit the Sun, in line with Earth, as it orbits L2. blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/01/2 #UnfoldTheUniverse
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NASA Webb Telescope
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Using Webb’s infrared abilities, researchers studied how starlight from beyond the molecular cloud was absorbed by the icy molecules within. This process left us with “chemical fingerprints,” or absorption lines, that could be compared with lab data to identify the molecules.
Graphic titled “Chamaeleon I Dark Cloud Background Star NIR38, Ice Chemical Composition.” There are four graphs of data, taken from three of Webb’s instruments: NIRSpec, NIRCam and MIRI. The graphs are arranged in a 2 by 2 grid, and they indicate what frozen molecules, or ices, may be present inside the cloud Chamaeleon I. Signatures of water are highlighted in blue bars, methanol in yellow, and methane in red. There are also signatures of carbon dioxide, ammonia, plus carbonyl sulfide, to name a few, and even evidence for molecules more complex than methanol. The two upper graphs and lower-left graph show the brightness of the background star on the vertical y axis versus wavelength of light in microns on the horizontal x axis. The graph at lower-right shows optical depth on the vertical y axis versus wavelength of light in microns on the horizontal x axis.
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NASA Webb Telescope
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We’re not talking ice cubes: This molecular cloud is so cold and dark that various molecules have frozen onto grains of dust inside. Webb’s data proves for the first time that molecules more complex than methanol can form in the icy depths of such clouds before stars are born.
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NASA Webb Telescope
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✨ Starry surprises in NGC 346 🌌 Early "green pea" galaxies discovered 🥇 First exoplanet confirmed by Webb 📀 New infrared look at dusty disk AU Mic ...and more! #ICYMI, catch up on Webb updates announced during the recent #AAS241 conference here: go.nasa.gov/3ZOcjmj
A star cluster within a nebula. The image contains arcs of orange and pink gas that form a boat-like shape. One end of these arcs points to the top right of the image, while the other end points toward the bottom left. Another plume of orange and pink gas expands from the center to the top left of the image. To the right of this plume is a large cluster of white stars. There are more of these white stars and galaxies of different sizes spread throughout the image.
Cropped view of Webb’s very first image released: galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. The background is black, with thousands of orange and white galaxies scattered across the view. The image highlights 3 tiny red galaxies, each placed in a small white inset box. 2 are found in the top right, and one is towards the upper left. The inset boxes are all above a very bright star with 8 long diffraction spikes, seen in the bottom left quadrant.
Graphic titled “Rocky Exoplanet LHS 475 b Transit Light Curve, NIRSpec Bright Object Time-Series Spectroscopy.” Behind the graph is an illustration of the planet and its star. The graph, or spectrum, shows the change in relative brightness of the star-planet system between 3:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. in Baltimore, Maryland, on August 31, 2022. The spectrum shows that the brightness of the system remains steady until the planet begins to transit the star. It then decreases, representing when the planet is directly in front of the star. The brightness increases again when the planet is no longer blocking the star, at which point it levels out. The graph shows data in purple circles, which chart measurements before, during, and after the transit. Data form a U-shaped valley of low brightness labeled “Starlight blocked by the planet” at 5 p.m. This dip cuts into a flat plain of high brightness labeled “Starlight,” which starts before the U-shaped dip, and resumes after the dip.
This image shows two views of the dusty debris disk around the red dwarf star AU Mic. The top panel is the disk at 3.56 microns. The disk appears as a fuzzy, blue, horizontal line broken in the middle by a black region outlined by a white, dashed circle. In the center of that region is a white, graphical star, which represents AU Mic. The actual star is blocked out in this image by Webb’s NIRCam coronagraph. The bottom panel is the second view of the disk, at 4.44 microns. The disk appears as a fuzzy, red, horizontal line broken in the middle by a black region outlined by a white, dashed circle. As in the top panel, in the center of that region is a cartoonish star representing AU Mic. The actual star is blocked out by the NIRCam’s coronagraph.
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NASA Webb Telescope
@NASAWebb
The ultimate goal for studying systems like AU Mic is to use Webb’s unprecedented sensitivity to observe giant planets in wide orbits, similar to Jupiter & Saturn in our own solar system. Webb’s observations mark new, uncharted territory for direct imaging around low-mass stars.
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NASA Webb Telescope
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The young star is AU Mic, a nearby red dwarf star with 2 known planets. Webb’s images allowed the science team to trace the disk as close to the star as 5 astronomical units (460 million miles) — the equivalent of Jupiter’s orbit in our solar system.
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NASA Webb Telescope
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Webb’s sensitivity allows it to see much smaller protostars (baby stars) than previously observed. The telescope can even see the dust in the disks of gas around these protostars, which is a first!
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NASA Webb Telescope
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NGC 346 resides in the Small Magellanic Cloud, which has a composition much closer to that of galaxies from the early universe — when star formation was at its peak. By observing NGC 346, astronomers may learn what early star formation in far-off galaxies might have looked like.
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NASA Webb Telescope
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Although Webb data definitively confirms that LHS 475 b is a small rocky world, the existence and composition of its atmosphere is still a mystery. Additional observations are scheduled this summer to find out more.
Graphic titled “Rocky Exoplanet LHS 475 b Atmosphere Composition, NIRSpec Bright Object Time-Series Spectroscopy.” The graphic shows the transmission spectrum of the rocky exoplanet LHS 475 b captured using Webb's NIRSpec Bright Object Time-Series Spectroscopy mode, with an illustration of the planet and its star in the background. The data points are plotted as white circles with grey error bars on a graph of amount of light blocked in percent on the vertical y axis versus wavelength of light in microns on the horizontal x axis. The y axis ranges from 0.09% percent (less light blocked) to 0.12% percent (more light blocked). The x axis ranges from 2.82 microns to 5.14 microns. A straight green line represents a best-fit model, which is featureless. A curvy red line represents a methane model, and a slightly less curvy purple line represents a carbon dioxide model.
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NASA Webb Telescope
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Planet LHS 475 b is a few hundred degrees warmer than Earth and very close to its star, completing an orbit in just 2 days. However, its red dwarf star is much cooler than our Sun, so scientists theorize it could still have an atmosphere.
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NASA Webb Telescope
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This was a telescope tag team effort: NASA’s TESS mission hinted at the planet’s existence, making it a target of interest for Webb. Webb’s NIRSpec instrument then captured the planet easily and clearly with just 2 transit observations.
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NASA Webb Telescope
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The light from these 3 galaxies traveled up to 13.1 billion years to get to us! The farthest one contains only 2% the oxygen found in a galaxy like ours. This suggests the galaxy is extremely young, as it contains very few heavy elements (like oxygen) recycled from earlier stars.
This graphic highlights three young, distant galaxies. Most of the graphic is taken up by a cropped view of Webb’s image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. The image shows thousands of orange and white galaxies, mixed in with stars both large and small, against the darkness of space. There are three small white inset boxes on top of the image, with two clustered towards the right and one towards the left. Zoomed-in versions of the inset boxes, which can be found above, below and to the side of their tiny counterparts, show off the galaxies in greater detail. The spotlighted galaxies resemble red streaks or blobs, surrounded by white specks. The background of the graphic is black.
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The galactic trio share chemical features — oxygen, hydrogen and neon signatures — with “green peas" (rare galaxies that looked like green dots in discovery images). Due to their similarities, we may be able to study nearby “green peas” to learn more about distant early galaxies.
Two different sets of spectral data, comparing the chemical fingerprints of green pea galaxies with 3 young, distant galaxies observed by the Webb telescope. On the top is the green pea galaxies data, shown in two squiggly horizontal lines of bright green, and below that is the Webb data, shown in three lines of red. The data sets share remarkably similar line patterns representing the signatures of oxygen, neon, and hydrogen. From left to right, both data sets generally start off with a high frequency of peaks and dips, which gradually taper out into just occasional peaks by the end.
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NASA Webb Telescope
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Webb had some help from space’s very own magnifying glass: gravitational lensing. This means that the mass of the galaxy cluster in Webb’s image actually magnified these three tiny, distant galaxies by up to 10 times.
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NASA Webb Telescope
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If you chose mostly D’s (exoplanet data), you’re a Trendsetter! Always ahead of the (transit) curve & plotting your next move, you may seem distant at first. Much like how we often detect exoplanets indirectly, you may prefer a text over a call. You keep our universe exciting! 📈
Faded background of artist illustration of exoplanet WASP-39 b with text in white and yellow. The text is “If you chose mostly D’s, “Trendsetter,” ahead of the curve, mysterious, text over call, please”
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NASA Webb Telescope
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C - If you answered mostly C’s (solar system images), you’re a Homebody! As an introvert, you prefer your own orbit. Comfy and routine is fine with you. Like Titan, you may have a thick atmosphere. But if someone's in your orbit, they’ll see your hidden charms! 🏠
Faded background of Webb’s image of Jupiter, zoomed in. The middle rings and giant spot are visible with text in white and yellow. The text is “If you chose mostly C’s, “Homebody,” introvert, thick shell, loves comfort & routine.”
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NASA Webb Telescope
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B - If you answered mostly B’s (images of baby stars), you’re a Star Gazer! Your head may be in the clouds. Just as nebulas often hold stars in early stages of development, you’re always growing & changing. Believe in yourself — you bring light to the universe. Keep shining! ✨
Faded image of fluffy tan-colored nebula clouds, with rust-colored highlights, surround a black central area with text in white and yellow. The text is “If you chose mostly B’s, “Star Gazer,” dreamer, star of the show, still figuring it out.”
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