NASA reveals James Webb Space Telescope’s first cosmic targets

Washington: The US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said that the first cosmic images from the James Webb Space Teles­cope would include unprecedented views of distant galaxies, bright nebulae and a faraway giant gas planet.

Carina Nebula is famous for its towering pillars, including “Mystic Mountain”, a three-light-year-tall cosmic pinnacle captured in an iconic image by Hubble Teles­cope.

Webb has also carried out spectroscopy, an analysis of light that reveals detailed information, on a faraway gas giant called WASP-96 b, which was discovered in 2014.

Nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, WASP-96 b is about half the mass of Jupiter and zips around its star in just 3-4 days.

Webb also captured Stephan’s Quintet, a compact galaxy 290 million light years away. Four of the five galaxies within the quintet are “locked in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters”, NASA said.

Perhaps the most enticing of all, Webb has gathered an image using foreground galaxy clusters called SMACS 0723 as a kind of cosmic magnifying glass for extremely distant and faint galaxies behind it.

This is known as “gravitational lensing” and uses the mass of foreground galaxies to bend the light of objects behind them, much like a pair of glasses.

About James Webb Space Telescope

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), NASA’s next flagship infrared observatory, developed in partnership with ESA and CSA, successfully launched on December 25, 2021. After deploying in space and alignment and calibration of the mirrors and instruments, JWST will be ready for science operations in summer of 2022.

Accessible to the worldwide scientific community, it will offer scientists the opportunity to observe galaxy evolution, the formation of stars and planets, exoplanetary systems, and our own solar system, in ways never before possible. This website offers scientists information on proposing for time on JWST as well as the capabilities of the observatory’s instruments and modes, data analysis tools and software, and news and events.

WAM NASA first comic targets NASA first comic targets