NASA Webb Telescope

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NASA Webb Telescope

@NASAWebb

The world's most powerful space telescope. Launched: Dec. 25, 2021. First images revealed: July 12, 2022. Verification: nasa.gov/socialmedia

Lagrange Point 2webb.nasa.govJoined April 2009

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NASA Webb Telescope

@NASAWebb

May 24

Webb has pinpointed three galaxies actively forming when our 13.8 billion-years-old universe was in its infancy. The galaxies are surrounded by gas suspected to be almost purely hydrogen & helium, the earliest elements to exist. More on this breakthrough: go.nasa.gov/4aCRiPs

This illustration is awash in bright blues, with only areas of the black background of space peeking out near the edges. Just above center is a large white spiral galaxy that is forming in a large cloud of blue gas. Its arms twirl clockwise. Immediately around the galaxy’s edges are larger light blue dots. The gas appears thicker and brighter blue below the galaxy and toward the bottom left in what looks like a loose, extended column. Other wispy blue gas extends to every edge of the illustration. There are two additional spiral galaxies, though they are about half the size of the one at the center. They appear toward the top left and bottom right. Several bright knots dot the brightest blue areas near the center, and toward the top right. The background is clearer and more obviously black along a wider area at the left edge, a sliver along the top right, and in triangles toward the bottom right corner. At bottom left is “Artist Concept” in white text.

Race cars and space telescopes!? The crossover you didn’t think you needed

Webb visited the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the total solar eclipse on April 8, and wishes all the drivers good luck in "kissing the bricks" this Sunday at the #Indy500

A person just out of frame holds a 1/80th scale model of the Webb Telescope up near a Borg-Warner trophy, given to winners of the Indianapolis 500 race. The telescope model features gold-colored, hexagonal mirrors and a five-layer, kite-shaped structure below it in silver. It is mounted on top of a dark brown, wooden base. The Borg-Warner trophy is topped with a silver man holding a black and white checkered flag facing down. Below it is a huge inverse-bell shaped trophy in silver. Engraved text names the trophy and the race. Most of the trophy is in a checkered pattern, and the lighter silver squares are decorated with the carved faces of past winners.

By matching Webb’s data to models of star formation, researchers found that these galaxies are a unique window into future star formation. They primarily have populations of young stars, and the gas around them suggests they haven’t formed most of their stars yet.

These galaxies belong to the Era of Reionization, only several hundred million years after the big bang. Gas between stars and galaxies was largely opaque. Stars contributed to heating & ionizing gas, eventually turning the gas transparent one billion years after the big bang.

On a purple background is a cone shape with slices through it. At left is the narrowest part, showing blueish swirls representing the period just after the big bang. A label reads: “Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.” The cone’s second section is labeled “Cosmic microwave background, about 13.7 billion years ago, (370,000 years after the big bang).” It appears as a flat circle with a smattering of green, blue, and dark blue dots. The next slice is dark with pale wisps, labeled “Dark Ages (ended 13.6 billion years ago).” The fourth section is sprinkled with bright fuzzy dots, labeled “Era of Reionization. Ended 12.8 billion years ago.” The slice at the widest part shows the more modern universe, with the mouth of the cone reflecting current galaxies, and is labeled “Present.” On top of the cone is a small outline of Webb with a wavy line extending back into the “Dark Ages” section.

Four squares against a blue background. On the top left the square has small bubble shapes sprinkled throughout. It is labeled “Stars begin forming, heating gas.” At top right, the bubbles are larger with small seed-like galaxies at their centers. The label says “Stars assemble into galaxies.” At bottom left, the bubbles are larger still and stars and galaxies are contained in the bubbles. The label says “Galaxies become more massive.” And at bottom right, the bubbles are gone and space is full of stars and galaxies. The label says “Clear universe, end of reionization.”

Why an illustration? Webb’s data consists of tiny red dots and their spectra, or graphs breaking down their light. Artist concepts help us visualize what a close-up of the gas around these galaxies may have looked like. Learn more about spectroscopy:

webbtelescope.org

Spectroscopy 101 – Introduction

Plan a visit to "Other Worlds" from the comfort of your screen.

Episode 2 of this series takes us to one of Jupiter's most exciting moons. Get to know the scientists exploring this ocean world with Webb & prepping for the

@EuropaClipper

launch: youtube.com/watch?v=2C5wzE

0:08 / 0:32

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NASA Webb Telescope reposted

Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope

@NASARoman

May 22

Our planet hunter has arrived! Roman's Coronagraph Instrument technology demonstration has arrived all the way from

@NASAJPL

! This instrument will block out the light from distant stars and use an array of masks to reveal orbiting exoplanets: go.nasa.gov/3K9ZuMj

Quote

NASA JPL

@NASAJPL

May 22

Special delivery

The JPL-built Roman Coronagraph Instrument has been delivered to @NASAGoddard, where it will be integrated with @NASARoman. The tech demo will increase the variety of exoplanets that scientists can directly image. go.nasa.gov/3K9ZuMj

0:01 / 0:12

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NASA Webb Telescope reposted

Space Telescope Science Institute

@SpaceTelescope

May 18

Every six weeks, a maneuver is planned for the James Webb Space Telescope to ensure it stays in its orbit a million miles away. It's carried out by a group of skilled engineers at the Space Telescope Science Institute. Watch as the team prepares the observatory!

2:11

Break out the chocolate and graham crackers, we’re headed to a “marshmallow” planet! With its puffy atmosphere, WASP-107 b is one of the least dense planets known. New Webb data may have solved the mystery of its floofiness. For s‘more on this story: go.nasa.gov/3WNFMh9

Illustration of an exoplanet with a hazy blue atmosphere and loose bands of clouds on the black background of space. The right three-quarters of the planet is lit by a star not shown in the illustration. The left quarter is in shadow. The terminator, the boundary between the day and night sides is gradual, not sharp. The planet is light blue with loose bands of white clouds. The edge of the planet has a subtle blue glow. Small white, bolded text in the bottom right corner reads “artist concept.”

The likely culprit is a phenomenon called tidal heating, caused by the planet’s slightly elliptical orbit. Knowing the amount of internal heat churning up that puffy atmosphere, scientists calculated the size of the planet’s core, finding it twice as massive as estimated!

With the puzzle pieces in place, WASP-107 b turned out to be not so odd after all. As researcher Mike Line puts it: “We can take something more like Neptune, with a lot of rock and not as much gas, just dial up the temperature, and poof it up to look the way [WASP-107 b] does.”

Our earliest, most distant look yet at a black hole merger

Webb detected evidence of a collision between two galaxies and their massive black holes, so far away that we're seeing it as it was when the universe was 740 million years old. More via

@ESA

: esa.int/Science_Explor

$Hundreds of stars and galaxies in varying shapes, sizes and colors on a black background. Two of the largest, most prominent stars can be found in the top left quadrant and near the bottom right edge, respectively. They are tinged with blue and have an eight-point diffraction spike pattern. Near the center of this image is the ZS7 system, made up of a merger between two galaxies and their black holes. The ZS7 system is not easily seen by the naked eye in this image, as it looks like very small red dots.$

ESA Science and 2 others

Here's a close-up of the merger's location, known as the ZS7 system! Webb's findings shed new light on how black holes grew so quickly in the early universe.

Three-panel image. From left to right: The first image shows hundreds of varying stars and galaxies on a black background. A small box has been drawn around its center region. Lines lead from this box into the second image, which shows a close-up revealing more details about the shapes and structures of its objects. Another, even smaller box is drawn around the core of this second image. Lines lead from it to the third image, which is labeled as the ZS7 galaxy system. This system is seen as one very large red dot as well as a few other smaller red dots above and to the right of it. A paler smudge is in the bottom left corner.

Su-su-su-supernova

Supernovae like the one that formed Cas A (shown here) are crucial for life as we know it. They spread elements like the calcium in our bones and the iron in our blood across space, seeding new generations of stars and planets: go.nasa.gov/44KdDcA

A circular-shaped nebula with a complex structure. On the circle’s exterior, particularly on the left side of the image, are curtains of material glowing orange like fire. Interior to this outer shell is a ring of mottled filaments in bright pink, studded with clumps and knots. A greenish loop extends from the upper right of the ring into the central cavity. Translucent wisps of blue, green, and red appear throughout the image.

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NASA Webb Telescope reposted

European Space Agency

@esa

May 16

A supermassive black hole... Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to find evidence of the most distant detection of black holes merging together. Never before has this phenomenon been detected so early in the Universe, shedding new light on how

This image shows the environment of the galaxy system ZS7 from the JWST PRIMER programme (PI: J. Dunlop) as seen by Webb's NIRCam instrument. It is a black blackground with bright spots of stars and galaxies sprinkled across.

ESA Science and 4 others

Quick: How many space words can you think of that start with S? Spiral galaxy and Stars are featured in Webb's image of NGC 4535. Look for knots of bright red and orange prominent at the outer edges of the arms. These are regions of star formation! More: go.nasa.gov/3V6Nthe

Webb’s image of NGC 4535 shows a densely populated face-on barred spiral galaxy anchored by a small central region with a light orange haze. Toward the center, the bar structure is filled with a blue haze of stars that forms a roughly vertical oval shape. Filaments of glowing dust cross the bar and are connected to two prominent spiral arms made of stars, gas, and dust. These structures start at the center, creating line-like arcs that form an overall elongated S shape. The spiral arms rotate clockwise and are largely orange, ranging from dark to bright orange, brightest at the edges. Scattered across the packed scene are some additional bright blue pinpoints of light, which are stars and star clusters spread throughout the galaxy. In the darker areas, it’s easier to spot brighter larger pinpoints of light. Some of these are blue and some are pink. A few appear more like ovals at the edges.

You're in for a ride!

When it comes to the Horsehead Nebula, multiple missions have taken the reins. From Euclid, to Hubble, and now Webb, we can learn more about our universe thanks to these amazing machines. More on Webb's contributions: go.nasa.gov/3JXCFLU

This #MothersDay, we're honoring all kinds of mothers. In this 2017 photo, Dr. Nancy Grace Roman — the "Mother of Hubble" and namesake of

@NASARoman

— gets a tour of the Webb Telescope from our Senior Project Scientist, Dr. Jane Rigby.

Dr. Jane Rigby and Dr. Nancy Grace Roman stand in front of the Webb telescope's golden hexagonal mirror, visible through a window that peers into the NASA Goddard cleanroom. Dr. Rigby has short blonde hair and wears a black suit. Dr. Roman has shoulder-length white hair and is wearing glasses and a dark blue dress.

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