A new window on the Universe

[Carl Sagan]

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) team releases its first images in a couple of days. Apparently they are out of this world. Here's a teaser video, of course narrated by Carl Sagan (who else?).

 

[Boycie]

I must admit, I’d never heard of Carl Sagan, do you hate me?

Edited July 10, 2022 by Boycie
Hold on, he’s dead?

[AndyinLiverpool]

Over here in pedant's corner we are wondering how this particular video can be 'narrated' by Carl Sagan.

[Carl Sagan]

27 minutes ago, Boycie said:

I must admit, I’d never heard of Carl Sagan, do you hate me?

No worries. I'd not heard of Boycie until I was on here and (apparently) he's alive!

Cosmos was a work of genius. Here's a clip I love explaining what a fourth physical dimension would be like. 

 

[Carl Sagan]

The images from the James Webb Space Telescope have been embargoed until Tuesday. However, today NASA has announced they'll be revealed at the White House tomorrow at 10pm UK time, by Biden and his mate Bill Nelson who he appointed to run NASA. 

On the plus side, this means the pictures must be incredible. As everyone's saying they are. The minus is that at least one of these old fogies will likely call it Hubble. 

 

[TigerTedd]

7 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

The images from the James Webb Space Telescope have been embargoed until Tuesday. However, today NASA has announced they'll be revealed at the White House tomorrow at 10pm UK time, by Biden and his mate Bill Nelson who he appointed to run NASA. 

On the plus side, this means the pictures must be incredible. As everyone's saying they are. The minus is that at least one of these old fogies will likely call it Hubble. 

 

Embargoed. Does that mean they’ve found aliens photo bombing the images?

[Carl Sagan]

Here's the first James Webb Space Telescope image, what we call an ultra deep field:

The telescope is actually pointed at a galaxy cluster 5 billion light years away, but because of all the mass concentrated in those galaxies, space is warped and we can use this as a gravitational lens to see much further - in this case 13 billion light years away. Which means 13 billion years back in time.

The curved lines of light are a side-effect of the gravitational lensing process, as not everything in the image can be aligned to bring it to a focus orbiting Earth. 

Four more images to come tomorrow, including a spectroscopic analysis of an exoplanet, to be able to quantify the atmospheric composition of a planet outside our solar system!

[EtoileSportiveDeDerby]

11 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

Here's the first James Webb Space Telescope image, what we call an ultra deep field:

The telescope is actually pointed at a galaxy cluster 5 billion light years away, but because of all the mass concentrated in those galaxies, space is warped and we can use this as a gravitational lens to see much further - in this case 13 billion light years away. Which means 13 billion years back in time.

The curved lines of light are a side-effect of the gravitational lensing process, as not everything in the image can be aligned to bring it to a focus orbiting Earth. 

Four more images to come tomorrow, including a spectroscopic analysis of an exoplanet, to be able to quantify the atmospheric composition of a planet outside our solar system!

Beautiful and marvellous isn't it?

Read in the times today that despite being something like 1.5M kms away from earth, the telescope could detect the heat signature of a bumble bee on the moon. That just blew my mind, how is that even possible?

[TimRam]

Imagine a similar scope pointed towards us from that distance with the power to see Earth.

The viewers would have to wait a while though https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/resource-library-age-earth

Edited July 12, 2022 by TimRam

[Wolfie]

Blimey, they're dragging out the big reveal show a bit.

JUST SHOW US THE PHOTOS !!!

[JoetheRam]

Bet someone's got their eyes closed and it needs re-taking.

[Day]

3 hours ago, Wolfie said:

Blimey, they're dragging out the big reveal show a bit.

JUST SHOW US THE PHOTOS !!!

 

[Carl Sagan]

5 hours ago, Wolfie said:

Blimey, they're dragging out the big reveal show a bit.

JUST SHOW US THE PHOTOS !!!

Here they are for anyone who didn't see the reveal: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

Here's one as an example showing the Carina Nebula and its star-forming regions

[chezzyram]

On 11/07/2022 at 11:10, TigerTedd said:

Embargoed. Does that mean they’ve found aliens photo bombing the images?

No, it means NASA have used the wrong amortisation procedure and Gibson has complained

[Wolfie]

36 minutes ago, Carl Sagan said:

Here they are for anyone who didn't see the reveal: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

Here's one as an example showing the Carina Nebula and its star-forming regions

Some amazing stuff in there….and they’ve only just turned it on. 
I’m really glad that my daughter will grow up seeing stuff like this for the first time & firing the imagination. She’s already asking me to test her on the periodic table (She’s 9)

[Van der MoodHoover]

11 hours ago, TimRam said:

Imagine a similar scope pointed towards us from that distance with the power to see Earth.

The viewers would have to wait a while though https://education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/resource-library-age-earth

They'd be looking at Forests last trophy...... ?

[Boycie]

1 hour ago, Carl Sagan said:

Here they are for anyone who didn't see the reveal: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages

Here's one as an example showing the Carina Nebula and its star-forming regions

Anybody else underwhelmed?

[Carl Sagan]

48 minutes ago, Wolfie said:

Some amazing stuff in there….and they’ve only just turned it on. 
I’m really glad that my daughter will grow up seeing stuff like this for the first time & firing the imagination. She’s already asking me to test her on the periodic table (She’s 9)

Most of my joy of science comes from physics and maths, but the periodic table is a work of extraordinary genius, with incredible predictive and explanatory power. Good on her!

[Carl Sagan]

7 minutes ago, Boycie said:

Anybody else underwhelmed?

A little but I do think we'll see extraordinary things in time. Of these 5 images perhaps the most interesting is the spectrograph 

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-steamy-atmosphere-of-distant-planet-in-detail

Being able to identify water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet over 1000 light years away is impressive, and from the signature then infer other things about it. This will get far more accurate over time.

The other thing is it appears impossible for the telescope to see any blank area of sky. Everywhere it points is full of background galaxies. It took Hubble weeks to do deep field exposures that James Webb can do in a morning.

But in some ways it feels more of the same, just better. Ultimately systematic gravitational lensing is what will change everything, using the Sun as a giant lens. People are working on that but it's maybe a hundred years off. But then we would easily see small detail on planets far beyond the solar system.

The converse argument is, if we're already contemplating that, advanced extraterrestrials can easily do it for Earth. And image Pride Park from a *very* long way away. Though as they're also looking back in time, perhaps they're viewing the Baseball Ground instead?

[TigerTedd]

9 hours ago, Carl Sagan said:

A little but I do think we'll see extraordinary things in time. Of these 5 images perhaps the most interesting is the spectrograph 

https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-steamy-atmosphere-of-distant-planet-in-detail

Being able to identify water vapour in the atmosphere of a planet over 1000 light years away is impressive, and from the signature then infer other things about it. This will get far more accurate over time.

The other thing is it appears impossible for the telescope to see any blank area of sky. Everywhere it points is full of background galaxies. It took Hubble weeks to do deep field exposures that James Webb can do in a morning.

But in some ways it feels more of the same, just better. Ultimately systematic gravitational lensing is what will change everything, using the Sun as a giant lens. People are working on that but it's maybe a hundred years off. But then we would easily see small detail on planets far beyond the solar system.

The converse argument is, if we're already contemplating that, advanced extraterrestrials can easily do it for Earth. And image Pride Park from a *very* long way away. Though as they're also looking back in time, perhaps they're viewing the Baseball Ground instead?

That’s the problem. Imagine if we did see signs of life. We’d be looking at a 13.5 billion year old civilisation that is almost certainly extinct now.

I can’t believe all those galaxies are in a space of sky the size of a grain of sand held at arms length. That is just ridiculous.

there’s lots about the universe that can make you feel tiny, but that makes you feel infinitesimal. The whole of human existence means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme of things. 

or even worse, imagine if we are in fact the only place in the whole universe where the exact circumstances came together to create life. Then human existence is ridiculously important. And what are we doing with such a cosmic gift and responsibility?

there’s a religious based theory that god created us because what’s the point of creating the universe if there’s no one to observe it. Imagine if we made ourselves extinct with global warming and wars and things. What an extraordinary waste that would be!!