![]() “ Is like having a small magnifying glass and a big magnifying glass,” Macarena explained. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.įor this reason, the James Webb carries four highly sensitive instruments that can observe infrared radiation, between 0.5 microns and 28.5 microns that is, from near-infrared to mid-infrared, surpassing the capacities of the Hubble and Spitzer telescopes.Īlthough Spitzer is a fine space telescope whose instruments detect light in the far infrared (between 3 microns and 160 microns), Webb has much more resolution and sensitivity. The age and distance of a galaxy calculated from its red redshift. Thus, the spectra will appear red-shifted while preserving their shapes, allowing the scientist to calculate the age of the galaxies. However, the ancient light that comes from the galaxies reaches us with its wavelength stretched to the infrared due to the expansion of space-time. The spectra reveal stars’ and galaxies’ composition. When light interacts with matter and we decompose it in its colors, it creates unique patterns called spectra, which are fingerprints of atoms and molecules, allowing scientists to identify elements and chemical compounds no matter where they are in the universe. How do colors help scientists determine the age of a galaxy? An ancient light stretched Green indicates those galaxies have lots of organic molecules. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI. The red galaxies, however, are drowning in dust and gas. Blue galaxies are plenty of stars but have little dust, which means most of their stars are older and there is less gas and dust left to create new stars. Filters translate the infrared colors to visible colors. Left: deep field viewed with the mid-infrared (MIRI) instrument right: viewed with the near-infrared NIRCam. The image shows galaxies from many moments of the universe, very old galaxies, intermediate galaxies, and the central cluster.” Those colors tell us the age of the galaxies. The first time I saw it, I said, Wow! all those colors, incredible. We can see galaxies in every Webb image, which is wonderful particularly in the case of MIRI, in its deep field, I was surprised by the colors. “ I didn’t expect to see so many galaxies. Most of the objects in the image are galaxies, thousands and thousands of them, from the white, big ones, in the center, to the very faint points in the background, many of them captured for the first time by Webb. These patterns only appear in the stars, not in the galaxies because stars are “ point sources, while galaxies are extended objects,” clarified Macarena García Marin, ESA operations scientist and team leader of the mid-infrared (MIRI) instrument at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore. ![]() These spikes are not actually part of the star, but an effect due to the sharp edges of the honeycomb mirror. The blue biggest and brightest objects with large spikes are stars that are close to us, in the Milkyway. The endless richness of the deep field image, jam-packed with stars and galaxies, covering a tiny patch of sky, tells the history of the universe. Macarena García with an Ariane 5 model in the background, the ESA rocket that sent Webb into space.
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