A project to map the earliest structure of the universe has found 15,000 more galaxies in its first snapshot than captured in the entire deep-space survey conducted 20 years ago.
The James Webb Space Telescope, the sky’s new preeminent observatory, observed about 25,000 galaxies in its single image, dramatically surpassing the about 10,000 indicated by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Ultra Deep Field Survey.(opens in new tab)A tiny fraction of the space pie will account for just 4% of the data that will be discovered from the new Webb survey by the time it’s completed next year, scientists say.
“When completed, this deep space will be staggeringly large and overwhelmingly beautiful,” said Caitlin Casey, an astronomer at the University of Texas at Austin who co-led the study.(opens in new tab).
The Webb telescope has taken the deepest picture of space ever
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Before Webb began operations in July 2022, scientists from NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency promised the telescope would reach deeper into space than mankind has ever seen. . In astronomy, looking into the distance is observing the past because light and other forms of radiation take time to reach us.
Deep-field imaging is a lot like drilling deep into the Earth to take core samples. This is a narrow but distant view of the universe, revealing layers of history as it traverses billions of light years. The oldest galaxy observed in Hubble’s deep space dates from the Big Bang to 800 million years after him. This is incredibly early compared to his 13.8 billion-aB year estimate for the universe.
“When completed, this Deep Field will be staggeringly large and overwhelmingly beautiful.”
Astronomers will use the James Webb Space Telescope to begin mapping the earliest structures in the universe.
Credit: COSMOS-Web / Kartaltepe, Casey, Franco, Larson, et al. /RIT/UT Austin/CANDIDE
But Webb uses a much larger primary mirror than Hubble’s (just under 8 feet in diameter compared to 21 feet in diameter) and detects invisible light at infrared wavelengths to see even earlier. Made. In short, there is a lot of dust and gas in space that blocks the view of very distant and inherently dim light sources, yet infrared light can penetrate clouds. Webb scientists say the telescope is so sensitive that it can detect the heat of bumblebees on the moon.
“The first goal of this mission was to see the first stars and galaxies,” Webb program scientist Eric Smith said last year. “
Researchers involved in a new study called COSMOS-Web have released mosaic images taken in January by Webb’s near-infrared camera and mid-infrared instrument. A paper providing the scope and outlook of the project is now available on the ArXiv preprint server and will be published.(opens in new tab) of astrophysics journal.
Four types of galaxies observed in the COSMOS-Web deep field survey.
Credit: COSMOS-Web / Kartaltepe, Casey, Franco, Larson, et al. /RIT/UT Austin/CANDIDE
The COSMOS-Web survey maps 0.6 square degrees of the sky (the area of three full moons).
Credits: Jeyhan Kartaltepe (RIT) / Caitlin Casey (UT Austin) / Anton Koekemoer (STScI) / Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
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First image of COSMOS-Web(opens in new tab)is Webb’s largest program in its first year, showing a rich variety of structures teeming with spiral galaxies, gravitational lensing, and galaxy mergers.In addition, hundreds of galaxies previously identified by Hubble are being reclassified(opens in new tab) It has different properties after being shown in more detail on the web.
Scientists say the purpose of the probe is to learn more about the so-called reionization epoch(opens in new tab), occurred about 200,000 to 1 billion years after the Big Bang. The first will also identify large galaxies from 2 billion years ago and study how dark matter, an invisible cosmic substance suspected to exist throughout the universe, evolved. .
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The COSMOS-Web team will observe over 255 hours and hope to map 0.6 square degrees (the size of three full moons) with NIRCam and 0.2 square degrees with MIRI. From all over the world he is attended by nearly 100 astronomers.
Jeyhan Kartaltepe, an astrophysicist at Rochester Institute of Technology and co-lead of the project, said in a statement that the sharpness and clarity of the data so far has been better than expected.(opens in new tab).
“This is just the tip of the iceberg of what’s to come,” she said.
