The James Webb Space Telescope Is About To Release Its First Color Images
Half a year ago the James Webb Space Telescope was launched into space starting the historic mission. By now, in early June, the telescope has exceeded expectations and has proved to be a very successful piece of technology up to this point. Even more so, NASA just announced very exciting upcoming news regarding the telescope and what to expect.
Specifically, just a few days ago on the first of June, NASA announced an exact date for the release of Webb’s first full-color images along with spectroscopic data. A bit over a month from now on July 12th, we should expect to see some very unique and fascinating results from the JWST. In addition to these images, the agency also provided more updates on the progress of the telescope and what exactly is next.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the most advanced space telescope ever made. The combination of billions of dollars and decades of work is about to be fully operational and consistently producing and revealing more about the Universe. Here I will go more in-depth into the recent update, upcoming image release, and what to expect in the future regarding Webb.
Full-Color Images
With the JWST making so much progress over the past few months, it was only a matter of time before some of the first full color images were released. Just a few days ago on the first of June, NASA tweeted saying, “July 12 — Save the date! Count down with us to the big reveal of Webb’s first full-color images and spectroscopic data” More specifically, the agency announced they will release its first full-color images and spectroscopic data on July 12, 2022. As the largest and most complex observatory ever launched into space, Webb has been going through a six-month period of preparation before it can begin science work, calibrating its instruments to its space environment and aligning its mirrors. This careful process, not to mention years of new technology development and mission planning, has built up to the first images and data: a demonstration of Webb at its full power, ready to begin its science mission and unfold the infrared universe.
“As we near the end of preparing the observatory for science, we are on the precipice of an incredibly exciting period of discovery about our universe. The release of Webb’s first full-color images will offer a unique moment for us all to stop and marvel at a view humanity has never seen before,” said Eric Smith, Webb program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “These images will be the culmination of decades of dedication, talent, and dreams – but they will also be just the beginning.” Deciding what Webb should look at first has been a project more than five years in the making, undertaken by an international partnership between NASA, ESA, CSA, and the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, home to Webb’s science and mission operations. “Our goals for Webb’s first images and data are both to showcase the telescope’s powerful instruments and to preview the science mission to come,” said astronomer Klaus Pontoppidan, Webb project scientist at STScI. “They are sure to deliver a long-awaited ‘wow’ for astronomers and the public.”
Once each of Webb’s instruments has been calibrated, tested, and given the green light by its science and engineering teams, the first images and spectroscopic observations will be made. The team will proceed through a list of targets that have been preselected and prioritized by an international committee to exercise Webb’s powerful capabilities. Then the production team will receive the data from Webb’s instrument scientists and process it into images for astronomers and the public. “I feel very privileged to be a part of it,” said Alyssa Pagan, a science visuals developer at STScI. “Typically, the process from raw telescope data to final, clean image that communicates scientific information about the universe can take anywhere from weeks to a month,” Pagan said.
It’s important to point out that while careful planning for Webb’s first full-color images has been underway for a long time, the new telescope is so powerful that it is difficult to predict exactly how the first images will look. “Of course, there are things we are expecting and hoping to see, but with a new telescope and this new high-resolution infrared data, we just won’t know until we see it,” said STScI’s lead science visuals developer Joseph DePasquale. Early alignment imagery has already demonstrated the unprecedented sharpness of Webb’s infrared view. However, these new images will be the first in full color and the first to showcase Webb’s full science capabilities. In addition to imagery, Webb will be capturing spectroscopic data – detailed information astronomers can read in light. The first images package of materials will highlight the science themes that inspired the mission and will be the focus of its work: the early universe, the evolution of galaxies through time, the lifecycle of stars, and other worlds. All of Webb’s commissioning data – the data taken while aligning the telescope and preparing the instruments – will also be made publicly available. In just over a month from now, we can expect to see some fascinating images and get a glimpse at what the James Webb Space Telescope is expected to reveal over the next few years.
Future & Black Holes
Now that we know more about the release of these images and data, we can take a closer look at some other updates and what the future of Webb is going to look like. NASA points out that after capturing its first images, Webb’s scientific observations will begin, continuing to explore the mission’s key science themes. Teams have already applied through a competitive process for time to use the telescope, in what astronomers call its first “cycle,” or first year of observations. Observations are carefully scheduled to make the most efficient use of the telescope’s time. These observations mark the official beginning of Webb’s general science operations – the work it was designed to do. Astronomers will use Webb to observe the infrared universe, analyze the data collected, and publish scientific papers on their discoveries.
Beyond what is already planned for Webb, there are the unexpected discoveries astronomers can’t anticipate. One example: In 1990 when the Hubble Space Telescope launched, dark energy was completely unknown. Now it is one of the most exciting areas of astrophysics. The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it.
One of the most fascinating parts of the universe are black holes. We recently saw the beautiful image of the black hole in the center of our Milky Way galaxy, taken by the Event Horizon Telescope. One of the puzzles of modern astronomy is how every large galaxy came to have a giant central black hole, and how some of these black holes are surprisingly large even at very early times. NASA asked Roberto Maiolino, a member of the Near-Infrared Spectrometer (NIRSpec) instrument science team, to tell them how Webb will help to answer some of these questions. He pointed out that “One of the most exciting areas of discovery that Webb is about to open is the search for primeval black holes in the early universe. These are the seeds of the much more massive black holes that astronomers have found in galactic nuclei. Most (probably all) galaxies host black holes at their centers, with masses ranging from millions to billions of times the mass of our Sun. These supermassive black holes have grown to be so large both by gobbling matter around them and also through the merging of smaller black holes.
“An intriguing recent finding has been the discovery of hyper-massive black holes, with masses of several billion solar masses, already in place when the universe was only about 700 million years old, a small fraction of its current age of 13.8 billion years. This is a puzzling result, as at such early epochs there is not enough time to grow such hyper-massive black holes, according to standard theories. Some scenarios have been proposed to solve this conundrum. One possibility is that black holes, resulting from the death of the very first generation of stars in the early universe, have accreted material at exceptionally high rates. Another scenario is that primeval, pristine gas clouds, not yet enriched by chemical elements heavier than helium, could directly collapse to form a black hole with a mass of a few hundred thousand solar masses, and subsequently accrete matter to evolve into the hyper-massive black holes observed at later epochs.
Conclusion
It’s clear that Webb is making progress and that we have a lot to look forward to regarding images, data, discoveries, and more. It has been a long time coming but NASA just announced an official release date for the start of some of this fascinating information. We will have to wait and see how it progresses and the impact it has on the space industry.