NASA Releases Webb Telescope’s First Images

14 Wednesday Sep 2022

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In mid-July 2022, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) released the first images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, a high-powered, space-based telescope that’s about a million miles from Earth right now. The agency launched the telescope in December 2021 from French Guiana, and it’ll hang out in its current position (give or take a few miles) for at least five years. It could – like the Opportunity Mars Rover – outlive expectations, lasting ten years or more, but only if it has enough fuel to maintain its orbit and it’s able to dodge the effects of space’s harsh environment.

How is the Webb Telescope Different From the Hubble Telescope?

The Webb Telescope (just Webb for short) is different from the Hubble. In addition to being technologically superior, it’s a lot farther out in space. The Hubble is in low-Earth orbit, just 375 miles from Earth (that’s about the distance from Milwaukee to Detroit if you drive around Lake Michigan). Because of Webb’s distance from Earth, it’s not serviceable; NASA doesn’t have any plans to send manned missions out there during its planned lifespan.

Webb can see a lot farther than the Hubble Telescope can, too. Right now, it’s looking at what happened in the universe shortly after the Big Bang – and that’s when the first stars and galaxies began to form. That’s why scientists have found the images so riveting; it can take them back to “explore every phase of cosmic history.”

The other – and most significant – difference between Webb and the Hubble is that the Webb Telescope can pick up infrared light. The Hubble Telescope can do that, too, but only to a small extent. That means scientists can observe extremely faint objects that they just couldn’t pick up with the Hubble.

What About Webb’s First Images?

The first images NASA released depict thousands of galaxies across the universe. Some of these galaxies formed around 13.2 billion years ago.

But perhaps what’s most fascinating about the images is that they’re incredibly tiny. The telescope uses gravitational lensing, which occurs when a massive object magnifies or distorts the light of objects behind it. According to NASA, the gravitational field of a huge galaxy cluster can bend light rays from more distant galaxies (just like a camera lens bends light to create a picture). As a result, the Webb images you see come from a picture that’s about as small as a grain of sand held at arm’s length – and they only depict a miniscule fraction of the vastness of space.

What Do You Think About the Webb Telescope’s Images?

Have you checked out the images from the James Webb Space Telescope? What did you think of them – were you impressed, or are you waiting for NASA to do another photo dump? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this – so please feel free to share them on my Facebook page or on my Twitter feed.

Carlos Gamino

The Constant Hum Beyond Our Solar System

12 Monday Jul 2021

Posted by Tedia Gamino in Uncategorized

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NASA, Science, Space

By Attorney Carlos Gamino

If you’re like many people, your curiosity was piqued when news broke that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had detected a faint humming sound in interstellar space – but what is it?

NASA’s Discovery of a Distant Humming in Space

Faint but constant vibrations were first detected by the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which has been in space for more than 40 years. It’s currently the most distant human-made object in space, and it’s feeding data to NASA that nobody ever expected to receive; the craft was only supposed to last five years – long enough to study Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn’s rings, and the larger moons of the two planets.

Voyager 1 currently hangs out in a region of space called the heliosphere – a protective bubble that encloses all the planets in our solar system. It’s essentially the only tool we Earthlings have to directly sampling interstellar space.

And nobody knows where the humming is coming from. It was measured through ripples of plasma in the interstellar medium – a mix of gases, radiation and the same particles that make up the space between stars. It’s operating on a narrow frequency bandwidth, and a lot of scientists are excited because it may be able to tell us how our solar system interacts with everything beyond it.

Scientists have distinguished this hum from other things Voyager 1 has detected, and they know for sure that it’s not from the sun. The sun has its own, distinctive signature when it makes ripples in outer space – and this humming isn’t that.

What Do You Think?

Have you been following Voyager 1 and its discoveries? I’d love to hear your theories on what this deep-space hum is coming from, so please share your thoughts on my Twitter feed or Facebook page!