NASA Reveals List of Cosmic Targets for James Webb Space Telescope’s First Images Ahead of July 12 Release

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched in December 2021 to capture images that were too old, faint, or distant for the Hubble Telescope to capture.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), in partnership with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, will be sharing some of the most detailed views of the universe captured to date. The three agencies will be soon releasing images, with full color and spectroscopic data, captured from the James Webb Space Telescope. In preparation for the release of the images, which mark the beginning of the scientific observations from the JWST, NASA has shared a list of the first cosmic targets that will have their images shared.

The list of targets and images was chosen by representatives from NASA, ESA, CSA, and the Space Telescope Science Institute. The images will be shared on NASA’s social media handles, NASA’s website, along with other social media handles. NASA will first share the images in a live broadcast beginning at 10:30 am EDT (8 pm IST) on Tuesday.

The images and spectroscopic data from the newly operational observatory will be made available after six months of remotely unfurling various components by the space agency, aligning the telescope’s mirrors, and calibrating instruments.

According to Reuters, the first batch of photos, which have taken weeks to process from raw telescope data, are expected to offer a compelling glimpse at what Webb will capture on the science missions that lie ahead. Webb’s instruments also make it ideal to search for signs of potentially life-supporting atmospheres around scores of newly documented planets orbiting distant stars and to observe worlds much closer to homes, such as Mars and Saturn’s icy moon Titan.

NASA announced on Sunday that an unspecified image from the collection will be unveiled on Monday evening by US President Joe Biden at a White House briefing with NASA chief Bill Nelson.

Here is the list of first images from the JWST

Carina Nebula: Approximately 7,600 light-years from the Earth, this dark and luminous nebula is found in the southern constellation of Carina, in the Carina–Sagittarius Arm. Home to some of the biggest and most powerful stars in our galaxy, it is also home to some of the brightest like WR 25, HD 93129A, and Eta Carinae.

WASP-96 b (spectrum): WASP-96 b is a gas giant exoplanet roughly 1,150 light-years away from the Earth. Around half the mass of Jupiter, the exoplanet orbits its star within 3.4 Earth days. Despite being a gas giant, it has a cloudless surface and shines brightly from sodium signatures.

Southern Ring Nebula: Also known as the Eight-Burst Nebula, NGC 3132, or Caldwell 74, this planetary nebula is located 2,000 light-years from Earth. This nebula, a giant cloud of ionized gas surrounding a dying red giant star, is one of the most extensively observed and studied by scientists.

Stephan’s Quintet: Stephan’s Quintet is a visual grouping of five galaxies located in the constellation Pegasus. Four of the galaxies from the first compact galaxy group to be ever discovered, while the fifth one is just visually closer to Earth is only 40 million light-years away compared to the 290 million of the rest of the quintet.

SMACS 0723: Using the gravitational pull of massive foreground galaxies, bent light rays from extremely far away galaxies are observed.

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