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James Webb Space Telescope pictures: Your questions answered

Space

James Webb Space Telescope pictures: Your questions answered

The first set of science images from the James Webb Space Telescope revealed marvellous stars and galaxies. Space reporter Leah Crane answers all your questions about these pictures and the possibilities for JWST

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James Webb Space Telescope images reveal dazzling view of the universe

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James Webb Space Telescope images reveal dazzling view of the universe

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This side-by-side comparison shows observations of the Southern Ring Nebula in near-infrared light, at left, and mid-infrared light, at right, from NASA???s Webb Telescope. This scene was created by a white dwarf star ??? the remains of a star like our Sun after it shed its outer layers and stopped burning fuel though nuclear fusion. Those outer layers now form the ejected shells all along this view. In the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image, the white dwarf appears to the lower left of the bright, central star, partially hidden by a diffraction spike. The same star appears ??? but brighter, larger, and redder ??? in the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image. This white dwarf star is cloaked in thick layers of dust, which make it appear larger. The brighter star in both images hasn???t yet shed its layers. It closely orbits the dimmer white dwarf, helping to distribute what it???s ejected. Over thousands of years and before it became a white dwarf, the star periodically ejected mass ??? the visible shells of material. As if on repeat, it contracted, heated up ??? and then, unable to push out more material, pulsated. Stellar material was sent in all directions ??? like a rotating sprinkler ??? and provided the ingredients for this asymmetrical landscape. Today, the white dwarf is heating up the gas in the inner regions ??? which appear blue at left and red at right. Both stars are lighting up the outer regions, shown in orange and blue, respectively. The images look very different because NIRCam and MIRI collect different wavelengths of light. NIRCam observes near-infrared light, which is closer to the visible wavelengths our eyes detect. MIRI goes farther into the infrared, picking up mid-infrared wavelengths. The second star more clearly appears in the MIRI image, because this instrument can see the gleaming dust around it, bringing it more clearly into view. The stars ??? and their layers of light ??? steal more attention in the NIRCam image, while dust pl

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James Webb Space Telescope’s first deep-field image is stunning

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James Webb Space Telescope’s first deep-field image is stunning

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This image may not be used in educational posters Double-slit experiment Computer illustration showing a plane wave (bottom right) passing through a gap in a screen, and the resultant circular wave then passing through a screen with two gaps. The gaps act as new wave sources and the wavefronts bend to create two sets of circular waves radiating outwards. These two new waves create an interference pattern as they interact. At the point where a wave peak from one hits a wave peak from another, or a trough hits a trough, they reinforce each other; their magnitudes are summed. This is known as constructive interference. Where a trough hits a peak or vice versa and they cancel each other out. This is known as destructive interference.

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James Webb space telescope

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7 big questions the James Webb Space Telescope is about to answer

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