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This image from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope shows the core of the Messier 92 (M92) globular star cluster, one of the oldest and brightest in the Milky Way. The cluster groups around 330,000 stars tightly together, and they gravitate en masse around the center of the galaxy. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will observe M92, or a similar globular cluster, at the start of its mission to demonstrate its ability to distinguish light from its individual stars in a densely populated environment. Webb’s high resolution and sensitivity will provide scientists with a wealth of detailed star data relevant to many areas of astronomy, including the stellar life cycle and the evolution of the universe. Credit: NASA / ESA; Acknowledgments: Gilles Chapdelaine
The first observations of stars in the local universe will pave the way for years of discovery on a range of scientific subjects
The combination of high-resolution instruments and infrared detection on NASAto come up James Webb Space Telescope will provide astronomers with a wealth of detailed data on individual stars in the local universe. A team of scientists has developed tests of Webb’s star-resolving abilities, which will pave the way for future observations and discoveries in many areas of astronomy, including dark energy, the stellar life cycle and the evolution of galaxies over cosmic time.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Artist Concept. Credit: NASA, ESA and Northrop Grumman
The combination of high-resolution instruments and infrared sensing on NASA’s upcoming James Webb Space Telescope will reveal stars that are currently hidden from even the powerful. The Hubble Space Telescope. The wealth of additional star data will allow astronomers to study a range of questions, from the birth of stars and the death of stars to the universe’s elusive rate of expansion. Early observations with Webb will demonstrate his ability to distinguish individual star light in the local universe in a range of environments and provide astronomers with tools to make the most of Webb’s powerful abilities.
“NASA’s Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes have been transformative, opening the door to the infrared universe, beyond the realm of red visible light. Webb is a natural evolution of these missions, combining Spitzer’s vision of the infrared universe with the sensitivity and resolution of Hubble, ”says Daniel Weisz of University of California, Berkeley, the principal investigator of Webb’s Early Release Scientific Program (ERS) on Resolved Star Populations.
Webb’s ability to resolve individual stars shrouded in gas and dust in visible light will be applicable to many areas of astronomical research. The goals of this ERS program are to demonstrate Webb’s capabilities in the local universe and to create free and open source data analysis programs for astronomers to get the most out of the observatory as quickly as possible. Data from the ERS programs will be immediately available to other astronomers and archived for future research via the Barbara A. Mikulski Archives for Space Telescopes (MAST).
Dark energy preview
Webb’s ability to select details for more individual stars than we’ve seen before will improve distance measurements to nearby galaxies, which Weisz says will be crucial to one of the biggest mysteries in the world. modern astronomy: how fast is the universe expanding? A phenomenon called dark energy seems to be behind this expansion. Various methods of calculating the rate of expansion have yielded different answers, discrepancies that astronomers hope Webb’s data can help reconcile.
“In order to do any of this science, calculate the distances and then the rate of expansion of the universe, we have to be able to extract the light of individual stars from Webb images,” Weisz says . “Our ERS program team will develop software that will allow the community to perform these types of measurements.”
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is designed to observe infrared light – wavelengths of light that are beyond the rainbow visible to human eyes. The longer wavelengths of infrared light provide information that other wavelengths cannot, including star formation and other processes that take place behind thick veils of dust, which block shorter wavelengths of visible light. Webb will detect a range of infrared light that overlaps with those seen by other NASA missions, but will also cover a significant portion of the infrared spectrum that they do not. This infographic highlights Webb’s complementary and complementary spectral coverage with two NASA missions: the Hubble Space Telescope and the Spitzer Space Telescope. Webb combines the power and sensitivity of Hubble imaging with Spitzer’s infrared coverage, and goes beyond both to provide a wealth of new infrared data about the universe that is hidden beyond visible red light. Credit: NASA and J. Olmstead (STScI)
The stellar life cycle
Seeing more stars will mean a better understanding of their life cycle. Webb will provide new views of the full range of stages in a star’s life, from training to death.
“At present, we are effectively limited to studying star formation in our Milky Way galaxy, but with Webb’s infrared capabilities, we can see through the dusty cocoons that house protostars forming in other galaxies – like Andromeda, which is richer in metals – and see how stars form in an environment very different, ”Weisz explains.
Astronomer Martha Boyer, also a member of this observational program team, is interested in the information Webb will provide towards the end of the stellar life cycle, when the stars become swollen, red, and dusty.
“NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has shown us that dusty, evolved stars exist even in very primitive galaxies where they were not expected, and now with Webb we will be able to characterize them and learn how our life cycle models stars line up with actual sightings. Says Boyer, an instrument specialist on Webb’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) team at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.
The primitive universe via the local neighborhood
Solving and studying individual stars is necessary to understand the big picture of how galaxies are formed and function. Astronomers can then ask even bigger questions about how galaxies have evolved in time and space, from the early distant universe to the local cluster – a collection of over 20 nearby galaxies to which our galaxy belongs. . Weisz explains that while this observational program will search locally, there is evidence from the early universe to be discovered.
“We will ask Webb to study a nearby ultra-weak dwarf galaxy, a remnant of the first seed galaxies to form in the universe, some of which eventually merged to form larger galaxies like the Milky Way,” Weisz says. . “At great distances, these types of galaxies are too faint for even Webb to see directly, but small local dwarf galaxies will show us what they looked like billions of years ago.
“We really need to understand the local universe to understand all of the universe, ”says Boyer. “The local cluster of galaxies is like a laboratory, where we can study galaxies in detail – every component. In distant galaxies we can’t work out a lot of details, so we don’t know exactly what’s going on. The study of this set of galaxies that are within our reach is a major step towards understanding distant or primitive galaxies.
As the Webb mission progresses, Boyer and Weisz expect astronomers to use the tools their team develops in unexpected ways. They stress that the development of the program was an effort of the entire local universe astronomy community, and they plan to continue this collaboration once the data is received. Their observation program team plans to organize a workshop to review the results of the program with others. astronomers and tweaking the software they’ve developed, all with the goal of helping members of the astronomical community request time to use Webb for their research.
“I think that’s really important – the idea of working together to achieve great science, as opposed to a lot of us trying to compete,” Weisz says.
The James Webb Space Telescope will be the world’s first space science observatory when it launches in 2021. Webb will solve the mysteries of our solar system, look beyond distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
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