NINE months after the world marveled at the first color images of deep space transmitted by the Webb telescope, this powerful scrutinizing eye continues to amaze with more discoveries and details of the vast yet unknown universe.
Since the first detailed and deep infrared image of the Universe that was presented on Earth on July 11, an impressive luminous composition of the most distant galaxies, the powerful scrutinizing eye, almost weekly, makes a discovery or reveals details of planets, star formation, galaxies, black holes, sand clouds, fusion of stars and creation of supernovae, among others.
An example of this, less than a week ago (April 4), the powerful telescope located the most distant galaxy detected to date, created during the initial expansion of the Universe, just 320 million years after the Big Bang and this Monday, revealed the secrets of stellar structure and basic elements for life in a massive star (Cassiopeia A) and captured eleven of Uranus’s thirteen rings with unprecedented clarity.
Following in the footsteps of the images that it transmitted at the end of 2022 on the arcs of galaxies, as well as Jupiter and Neptune, the space telescope took an impressive snapshot of the other ice giant of the solar system, Uranus, where eleven are perfectly appreciated. of its thirteen known rings, as well as bright features in the planet’s atmosphere.
Webb’s data demonstrates the observatory’s unprecedented sensitivity to the faintest dust rings, which have only been imaged by two other facilities: the Voyager 2 spacecraft when it flew past the planet in 1986 and the Keck Observatory with advanced adaptive optics, reports The NASA.
Seventh planet from the Sun, Uranus is unique: it rotates on its side, at an angle of approximately 90 degrees from the plane of its orbit. This causes extreme seasons as the planet’s poles experience many years of constant sunlight followed by an equal number of years of total darkness. (Uranus takes 84 years to orbit the Sun.) Currently, it is late spring for the north pole, which is visible here; Uranus’ northern summer will be in 2028. By contrast, when Voyager 2 visited Uranus, it was summer at the south pole. The south pole is now on the “dark side” of the planet, out of sight and facing the darkness of space.
This infrared image from Webb’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) combines data from two 1.4 and 3.0 micron filters, shown in blue and orange, respectively. The planet shows a blue tint in the resulting representative color image.
When Voyager 2 looked at Uranus, its camera showed a nearly featureless blue-green ball at visible wavelengths. With infrared wavelengths and Webb’s extra sensitivity, we see more detail, showing just how dynamic Uranus’s atmosphere really is.
On the right side of the planet is an area of brightness at the sun-facing pole, known as the polar cap. This polar cap is unique to Uranus: it appears to appear when the pole enters direct sunlight in the summer and disappears in the fall; these Webb data will help scientists understand the currently mysterious mechanism. Webb revealed a surprising aspect of the polar cap: a subtle enhanced glow in the center of the cap. The sensitivity and longer wavelengths of Webb’s NIRCam may be why we can see this enhanced polar feature of Uranus when it hasn’t been seen as clearly with other powerful telescopes like the Hubble Space Telescope and Keck Observatory.
A bright cloud is found at the edge of the polar cap, as well as some fainter extended features just beyond the edge of the cap, and a second very bright cloud is seen to the far left of the planet. These clouds are typical of Uranus at infrared wavelengths and are likely related to storm activity.
This planet is characterized as an ice giant due to the chemical composition of its interior. Most of its mass is thought to be a hot, dense fluid of “icy” materials (water, methane, and ammonia) over a small rocky core.
Uranus has 13 known rings and 11 of them are visible in this Webb image. Some of these rings are so bright with Webb that when they are together, they appear to merge into one larger ring. Nine are classified as the planet’s major rings, and two are fainter dusty rings (such as the closest fuzzy zeta ring to the planet) that were not discovered until the Voyager 2 flyby in 1986. Scientists hope that future images from Webb to this planet reveal the two faint outer rings that were discovered with Hubble during the ring plane crossing in 2007.
Webb also captured many of Uranus’s 27 known moons (most of which are too small and faint to see in the posted photo), the brightest six of which are identified in the panoramic image. This was just a short 12 minute exposure image of Uranus with just two filters. It’s just the tip of the iceberg of what Webb can do by observing this mysterious planet, NASA said.
Cassiopeia A
Another of Webb’s shipments this Monday reveals the secrets of stellar structure and basic elements for life in Cassiopeia A, the remains that a star leaves behind when it dies.
Cassiopeia A is the youngest known remnant of a massive exploding star in our galaxy, making it a unique opportunity to learn more about how such supernovae occur. Light from its explosion first reached Earth 340 years ago.
“Cas A represents our best chance to look at the debris field of an exploded star and perform a kind of stellar autopsy to understand what kind of star was there beforehand and how that star exploded,” said Danny Milisavljevic, an assistant professor of physics. and astronomy in the Purdue University School of Sciences, author of the research.
Supernovae like the one that formed Cas A are crucial to life. Stars create a variety of elements, and subsequent supernovae create additional elements, from the calcium in our bones to the iron in our blood, and spread them across interstellar space, seeding new generations of stars and planets.
“By understanding the process of exploding stars, we are reading our own origin story,” Milisavljevic said.
Located about 11,000 light-years away, the remnant lies in the section of sky that is considered to be the constellation Cassiopeia. An arrangement of five bright stars in a “W”, Cas A is invisible to human eyes from Earth, but occupies the space that appears to be to the right of the last stroke of the W.
Webb’s new image shows incredible detail as mid-infrared light was translated into visible light, allowing scientists to analyze detail and structure. Large curtains of material, shaded red and orange, represent where material from the star collides with circumstellar gas and dust. Between those pink bands, bursts of pink show where the star’s composite elements glow, including oxygen, argon and neon.
For researchers, one of the most puzzling elements of the image is the large green ribbon on the right side of the image.
“We’ve nicknamed him the Green Monster, after Boston’s Fenway Park,” Milisavljevic said. “If you look closely, you’ll notice that it’s pockmarked with what look like tiny bubbles. The shape and complexity are unexpected and hard to understand.”
“Compared to previous infrared images, we see incredible detail that we haven’t been able to access before,” said Tea Temim, co-investigator on the program at Princeton University.
Counterintuitively, some of the most exciting subject matter in the picture can seem like the most prosaic: dust. It’s hard to explain the origins of this dust without giving credit to supernovae, which spew large amounts of heavy elements, the building blocks of dust, through space. By studying Cas A with the Webb telescope, astronomers hope to gain a better understanding of its dust content, which may help inform our understanding of where the building blocks of planets and ourselves are created.