About 13.8 billion years ago, the foundations of everything we are, everything we have come to understand, were born.
Most people know this event as the Big Bang, but creating what we see today took time. A lot. For billions of years it was transformed from a place of high density and temperature, then expanded and then cooled. Eventually, the simplest elements were formed, such as hydrogen and helium, still the most abundant elements in our universe.
The first stars lit up, crossing the swampy darkness. They then clustered to form galaxies, star islands in this dark void, even superclusters of hundreds or thousands of galaxies, all linked together. Supernovae (violent explosions of massive stars) exploded within these starry islands, creating more stars and eventually planets. Like the Earth, where life arose in abundance.
On Tuesday, the most powerful telescope ever built will help humanity trace its roots back to the beginning of time by looking through gas and dust, illuminating what has hitherto been invisible.
And maybe even reveal an atmosphere around an exoplanet.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), a joint mission between NASA, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA), will launch several images, at least five, of looking through the darkness and dust. go back to when the universe was in its infancy.
On Friday, the agencies announced their goals:
- SMACS 0723a cluster of galaxies that distort the light of objects behind them, allowing astronomers to see faint, distant galaxies behind them.
- WASP-96ba giant gas planet located 1,150 light-years from Earth.
- He Southern Ring Nebula.
- Stephan’s Quinteta collection of five galaxies.
- And one of the most magnificent nebulae in the night sky, the Carina Nebula.
“You’ll see images that are absolutely stunning,” said René Doyon, a professor at the University of Montreal and principal investigator at NIRISS, one of the four scientific instruments in the James Webb Space Telescope.
🎯 Acquired goals!
The objectives of the first Webb images have been announced:
✨ WASP-96b
✨ Southern Ring Nebula
✨ Stephan’s Quintet
✨ Carina Nebula
Tune in on July 12th as we reveal the first images of Webb and pic.twitter.com/TLP2LenkPF
– @ NASAWebb
The JWST is a $ 10 billion powerhouse. Sitting in an orbit beyond the Moon, the telescope is larger and therefore much more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope orbiting the Earth. It also has different capabilities from Hubble and, as a result, is able to look back in time to how long the universe was in its infancy.
Canada has played an important role in Webb’s capabilities. First, there is the Canadian-built thin guide sensor (FGS), which is crucial to keeping the telescope on target.
There is also the Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS), which will help astronomers study the atmospheres of exoplanets and observe distant galaxies.
The southern ring nebula, also known as the ‘Eight-Burst’ nebula because it appears to be an eight-figure figure when viewed through some telescopes, is visible in the southern hemisphere. The nebula is almost half a light-year in diameter and 2,000 light-years away. The gases move away from the dying star in its center at a speed of 14 kilometers per second. (NASA / The Hubble Heritage Team [STScI/AURA/NASA])
Due to Canada’s contribution, astronomers here will have plenty of time to use the telescope.
“Canadians should be proud [be part] of this project, ”said Doyon, who has been working at Webb for the past 20 years.“ Every image, every [bit] of the data that will come out of Webb will have been guided by the eye, the Canadian eye of FGS. So … we should definitely be proud. “
Looking deeper into the past
The farther away an object is, the longer it takes for its light to reach us. This means that everything we see is as it was, not as it is.
Telescopes allow us to see further back in time by collecting dim light. The larger the telescope, the more light it can pick up and the further back it can see.
Although Hubble has been able to see distant galaxies, it does not have the resolution that Webb has, so the images will be much sharper, revealing many more details.
In addition, Webb sees in the near infrared, which means he can look through dust and gas that might otherwise obscure objects. Hubble primarily sees the universe in optical light, like the human eye, although it can also see at nearby ultraviolet and infrared wavelengths. Webb, however, is optimized for infrared viewing.
All of this means that Webb will look deeper than ever into our past and offer astronomers incredible details.
“There is a difference between detecting and studying something in depth. Hubble had seen spots of objects that we believe had formed only about 100 million years after the birth of the universe,” said Lamiya Mowla , Dunlap astronomer at the University of Toronto. Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics.
“However, these need to be studied even more thoroughly with James Webb. With James Webb we can see objects as they are forming, just after they are heated; discs are forming; they are forming protuberances in galaxies. This is the kind of era we can see with the James Webb Space Telescope. “
This image shows the 2012 Hubble Ultra Deep Field, an enhanced version of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field image with additional viewing time. It first revealed a population of distant galaxies with redshifts between 9 and 12, including the most distant object observed to date. These galaxies will require confirmation by spectroscopy from the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope before they are considered fully confirmed. (NASA, ESA, R. Ellis (Caltech))
Mowla, who specializes in the evolution and formation of galaxies, is also part of the NIRISS Impartial Cluster Survey of Canada (CANUCS), which will study some of the earliest galaxies in the universe.
He is looking forward to the release of the first scientific images and will see it from the University of St. Mary in Halifax with other CANUCS members, including Chris Willott, an astronomer at the Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Center of the National Research Council of Canada leading the research. The instrument will use NIRISS to study galaxies at different periods in the history of the universe.
I almost broke my jaw the first time I saw this data.- René Doyon, professor at the University of Montreal
Willott said he has already seen some early test footage.
“It’s very exciting to finally see the data released,” Willott said. “I’ve been looking at these images for months. And they’re so spectacular, and it’s really exciting that the whole world can see them on Tuesday.”
He is eager to get more data to study the evolution of galaxies, which have all sorts of different shapes and sizes.
“I want to see how far we can really go back to the beginning of the universe. We know that Webb will break the records we could get from Hubble in terms of how far we can look back and how far in the universe we can “But we don’t really know how far we’ll go with Webb. And that’s something I think will take time.”
‘A new chapter’
Not only will Webb be able to see some of the oldest galaxies, but he will also be able to detect atmospheres around distant planets orbiting other stars. Ultimately, astronomers expect Webb to be able to detect any possible life signatures of these exoplanets.
“I can say that [on] On July 12, we will turn a new page to a new chapter to study the atmospheres of exoplanets, “Doyon said.” The quality of the data is completely amazing. I almost broke my jaw the first time I saw this data. “
While the general public may be excited to see new, more detailed images of our universe, for astronomers it’s all about getting the data to analyze.
For example, Doyon said, there is the famous exoplanetary system known as TRAPPIST-1, which has seven planets, three of which are in the habitable zone, a region around a star where water can exist in the Earth. surface of a planet.
This graph shows, in the top row, the artist conceptions of the seven planets of TRAPPIST-1 with their orbital periods, distances of their star, radii, and masses compared to those of Earth. The bottom row shows data about Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars. (NASA / JPL-Caltech)
“The only way to find out if they have water on their surface is by measuring the atmosphere,” he said. “And Webb has the ability to do that, and in particular the NIRISS instrument.”
But this is just the beginning of research into exoplanets. Astronomers hope to finally find signs of life.
“The next question is: do they have water [their surfaces], then the next step will be biosignatures, a gas that is only produced by biological activity. This is a long shot. I mean, we know it will be very hard to spot that with Webb, it will probably take a lifetime of JWST to do that, but who knows? That’s the best thing about it: we’re going to be taken by surprise. “
Mowla is also waiting to be surprised investigating galactic evolution.
“Seriously, I’m looking forward to seeing something that can’t be explained by current theory. Because that’s what always happens. Whenever you have new data and you look at the universe in a different realm. You always find something that will go against it. of your theories and will force you to rethink a lot of things, ”he said.