Well, folks, we all have a new telescope! That’s right, the James Webb Space Telescope team released the first image on Monday evening, and well, it sure is a beauty.
Not bad for almost ten billion, eh?
“Wait a second, Josh…ten billion dollars of my money?”
Uh…yeah.
“And didn’t the Hubble take the same photo here?”
Uh…yeah. But it’s better! (Here’s a comparison.)
I got a note from a friend yesterday asking my thoughts on the image. “Well, it reminds me of a story.” Upon receiving some Christmas cash from my dad, I said “I think I shall buy a new guitar!” He looked puzzled, having seen me collect a wall full of them over the years. “I thought you had lots already.” “Yeah, but I don’t have a new one.”
I went out, and found a “sweet axe” that has just the tone I’ve been chasing for years. But, if you didn’t hear a careful explanation and comparison, this extra instrument would be worthy of an eye roll.
Since we spent close to ten billion dollars on our new telescope, it’s worth a look at what the JWST is doing. It’s incredible, and I’m here to explain just how cool it is. Let’s check out both the numbers and the feelings!
The Deep Field
So, what exactly are we looking at here? First off, notice the weird lines on the stars.
Those are called diffraction spikes, and are caused both by the hexagonal shape of the mirrors, and the poles holding the secondary mirror up. (Thing that looks like a tripod or the little part of a TV dish.)
(The Hubble has a slightly different design, and it’s secondary mirror is held in place with two crossed beams instead of three, resulting in the usual “cross” pattern diffraction spike.)
Ability
The Hubble took a month to get a fuzzier image, and Webb snapped this in 12.5 hours with a ton more detail and clarity. It’s just getting warmed up! With a mirror almost three times bigger, it will be able to see things almost nine times fainter than Hubble. Although, comparing the two scopes isn’t exactly apples and oranges. It’s more apples and blueberries. Webb sees the redder side of things, Hubble the bluer. And Webb sees much, much farther. Here’s an article with a good comparison if you’re interested.
What is it?
With the exception of the spiky stars, each little blur of light is an entire galaxy, each containing billions of stars themselves. Note the large galaxy in the center of the photo, just to the lower right of the big spike star. See how the other ones seem to bend around it, almost like you’re looking across the room through a magnifying glass? That’s because you are! The galaxy cluster in the foreground is so massive, it is warping space in such a way that it acts as a giant telescope lens in space. Dig this video (or even the thumbnail to get a brief idea of how it works.) Whaaat?
Time Machines
Here’s the weirdest thing of all. The farther away something is, the longer it takes light to reach us. Take an earthly example: If your buddy mails you a photo from across town, you’ll see them as they were a few hours ago. If the letter has to travel from the next state, you’ll see them as they were yesterday. If it travels across the country, you’ll see them as they were last week.
Back to space, the farther away we look, the farther back in time we’re seeing. So far, Webb has found a galaxy in the field that’s 13.1 billion light years away…looking 13.1 billion years back in time, that is! (And the universe is 13.8 billion years old.)
So What?
Leave it to us astronomers to reduce the majesty of the universe to a pile of impossibly large numbers. “Astronomers - we put the Numb in Number!”
Data is great for explaining the objective, but perhaps we can wander into the subjective: what does this mean for us? Sometimes, a number can put it into context: To travel a mere one light year would take over 11 million years at Earthly highway speeds, and we’re talking distances of billions of light years in these pictures.
But let’s look at it another way: This is a photo of our past, way before our Sun existed. It’s a cosmic version of seeing our grandparents in a summer beach scene. “Look at those fashions! Look how young! If they could only see us now..”
(A good way to think of it is where previously we were only able to see them as teenagers, now we’re getting baby photos.)
And, like ancestors, this is a “grandparents to the power of ten to the gazillion” family portrait here. Elements would be forged in these stars, who themselves would live and die, giving rise to new worlds, and eventually ours. And eventually, you.
What does it make you think, looking back across all that time, at stars in galaxies that have long since ceased to exist? How does it make you feel? Do you think about God, distance, scale, aliens, life, time, and how a pizza would be good right about now? (Just think - pizza didn’t exist in that photo…or perhaps it did?) Let your mind wander.
Get that marveling on!
Josh
PS. I didn’t even get into the insanity of this image this time . I imagine tying an ant’s shoelaces…while he’s on the moon. Webb snagged a spectral analysis of an atmosphere of an exoplanet orbiting a star over a thousand light years away. Now that’s wild. We’ll get into that soon.