NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope opened the door to a new era in astronomy when the world got its first peek at the instrument’s complete capabilities.
The first full-color photos and spectroscopic data from the telescope were streamed via NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, at 10:30 a.m. EDT (14:30 UTC) on July 12, 2022.
The targets listed below comprise the first round of full-color scientific pictures and spectra collected by the observatory and the formal start of Webb’s general science activities.
James Webb’s deep field photograph displays galaxies from the epoch of the first stars.
Astronomers want to determine how these stars initially ignited following the Big Bang, which occurred around 13.8 billion years ago. Before the formation of the first stars, the cosmos was a massive cloud of hydrogen and helium gas. The image’s earliest galaxies are believed to have formed 2 billion years after the Big Bang.
Astronomers seek to observe how the earliest galaxies clustered just after Big Bang to discover how they became today’s stars and galaxies.
Today, galaxies are tied together in clumps that span the cosmos along immense filamentary lines, with enormous gaps between them. The distribution and magnitude of these voids are believed to provide information about how the Big Bang happened. Studying the earliest galaxies will likely give more recent information on these circumstances.
Modern physics doesn’t fully understand gravity; galaxies accelerate faster than predicted due to “dark energy.”
This is one of the reasons why the James Webb space telescope investigates the interaction of ancient galaxies. Unresolved in physics is whether or not the primordial galaxies accelerated apart at the same rate as galaxies today. If it differs, this may provide a clue as to the source of dark energy.
Other Predictions
Nearby massive galaxies gravitationally amplify the light from distant old galaxies, like eyeglass lenses. This magnification method, used for many astronomical studies, makes the deep field image conceivable.
Einstein predicted the “gravitational lens” phenomenon, in which gravity bends light as it does mass. Astronomers can reverse the influence of magnification to see how galaxies seem in reality.