Thanks to NordVPN for sponsoring today’s video. This is one of the most hotly
requested topics for this channel. Even if you didn’t actively request it yourself,
you couldn’t have missed the buzz around the James Webb Space Telescope. It is more powerful than any
other space telescope, including Hubble. So big, it had to be folded up like origami to fit
onto the rocket that carried it into space. So precise and sensitive, it has to be kept at
temperatures not much warmer than absolute zero, to prevent its own internal heat radiation
from getting in the way of its sensors. So expensive, it cost $10 billion dollars to make,
and so complicated it took decades to complete. 300 potential failure points stood
between it and proper functionality. But now it is here. And it has an incredible
mission: to study planetary systems for evidence of life, to understand the formation of planets,
stars and galaxies, and to peer out across the universe to objects so far away, the light they
gave off has been travelling for almost as long as the universe is believed to have existed. In other
words, the JWST was built to spot the first stars and galaxies at the very edge of our knowable
universe, objects from the beginning of time. And the first images have started coming in.
I’m Alex McColgan, and you’re watching Astrum. Join with me on a journey as we look over the
early photographs coming out of the James Webb Space Telescope, and see for ourselves the power
and precision of this engineering miracle. It’s already promising to be spectacular. For those who
are new to this channel, we’ve already spent some time watching the JWST as it’s gone from a work
in progress to a fully realised piece of hardware. It was first conceived in the 1990’s, and was
originally intended to cost only a billion dollars and to launch in 2007. However, numerous setbacks
and delays plagued the project, pushing it back again and again. It was only in December 2021
that it finally launched, and it has been spending the intervening months slowly unpacking itself,
powering up its systems, and testing its hardware. It is a 6,500kg monster, with a sun shield
whose 14x21m dimensions are around the size of a tennis court. Its mirror for capturing light
is 6 times larger by area than Hubble’s lens, which allows it to pick up more photons
from further away to create crisp images. It boasts numerous cameras and scientific
instruments, which allow it to see across the infrared spectrum. This is a feature
that is vital to its unique mission. Due to the expansion of the universe, all of the
light from the furthest reaches of space have been stretched to the point that no matter what they
were to start with, they are all at least infrared light now. So, the only way to see these light
sources is with an infrared telescope. On top of that, infrared is better at punching through
dust clouds and other obscuring debris, giving the James Webb Telescope the incredible ability to
see objects that are beyond the sight of Hubble. I compare this telescope with Hubble a lot, as the
James Webb Space Telescope was originally intended to be Hubble’s successor. However, given their
slightly different fields of view – Hubble can mostly see in visible light spectrums while the
James Webb Space Telescope can almost exclusively see infrared, and can’t see some visible light
spectrums at all – it’s more accurate to say that the two telescopes compliment each other
rather than compete. They work together to form a powerful duo, expanding our understanding of the
universe. But that’s not what you’re here for. You are here to see what James Webb can do. Beginning
in our own galaxy, let’s gradually expand our vision outwards towards the edge of the knowable
universe. You are in for some spectacular sights. The first stop-off on our journey is
a place known as the cosmic cliffs. The Cosmic cliffs, otherwise known as NGC 3324,
are a part of the Carina Nebula about 7,600 light years away from us. These peaks you’re looking at
are massive structures around 7 light-years high, and what you see here is only a portion of the
nebula as a whole. The actual nebula is much larger, and contains a hollowed-out centre, where
the stellar winds given off by stars have blasted all nearby dust away from them. What we’re looking
at here is the edge of this hollowed-out bubble. Scientists are very interested in this region
of space for one very simple reason – it helps answer questions about the formation of stars.
Thanks to the stellar winds in this zone, dust and matter conglomerate together,
forming a birthing place for stars. However, for all our stargazing, there are
still many mysteries surrounding this process. How exactly do they form? What do the different
stages look like? It’s difficult to tell. Part of the difficulty with finding the answers
is the dust itself, both vital to the process and also a massive impediment to seeing it happen. It
wraps around the forming stars like a protective cocoon, stopping scientists from seeing very
clearly what is going on at the moments we’d like to see the most. James Webb fixes that.
Not only does this image provide more detail than Hubble’s image, but thanks to JWST’s onboard
Miri, or Mid-Infrared Instrument, we can peel back the layers of dust and see what lies within. See
how much clearer the image is! This will provide scientists with data on the formation of stars for
a long time yet. So much for the birth of stars. At our next stop, the JWST uncovers more about the
end of their lifespan. And for this, let’s look a little closer to home to NGC 3132, otherwise known
as the Southern Ring Nebula. The image on the left was taken by JWST’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam),
while the one on the right was taken again by MIRI. This is a planetary nebula, although
technically that term is a bit of a misnomer. While regular nebulas are birthplaces of stars,
a planetary nebula is not a place planets form. Instead, it was just an unhelpful naming
convention used by early astronomers who noted the round shapes of these nebulas and thought they
looked a bit like planets. The name stuck, even though our interpretation of the name has moved
on. Planetary Nebulas like this one are formed when dust and gas are blasted out from dying stars
towards the end of their lifetimes. Knowing the chemical composition of this dust is useful, as
understanding what materials exist in the universe helps us to understand what later waves of stars
might be made out of. So once again James Webb’s ability to peel back the layers of dust to see
what lies within is invaluable. Compare this with Hubble’s image to get a sense of the increased
detail that JWST is able to bring to bear. From this scientists have learned that the second
star within this system still has not actually exploded, so the formation of its own planetary
nebula is likely still to come. We can also get a better sense of how the gravitational interactions
of the two stars stir the nebula, mixing the dust together in fascinating patterns. Now, let’s
look a little farther out, beyond our galaxy. If we want to see star creation, it makes sense
to find a location like this. 161,000 light years away from us lies the Tarantula Nebula, so named
because it evokes the idea of a giant tarantula, lurking within its silken web. Aside from its
obvious, otherworldly beauty, this area is of particular note to scientists because of its
similarity to a period in the universe’s history known as the “Cosmic Noon”. At that point,
which – to our best understanding – took place about a billion years after the universe
began, star creation was at its most prolific. It is thought that conditions there would have
looked something like this. James Webb has been able to spot stars here that are only just
coming into being – a fascinating period of time to study. Let’s look further out again. As our
gaze extends, we lose track of individual stars, and start seeing things on a galactic scale. Even
here there are beautiful dances being played out. Stephan’s quintet is a formation of 5 galaxies
(although one is not really next to the others, but just looks that way from our perspective),
famous for its being featured in the film “It’s a Wonderful Life”. It is thought that 4 of these
galaxies will one day collide. Indeed, two are already doing so. James Webb allows us to see
clearly the brilliantly hot dust being kicked off as these two central galaxies circle each other.
The gravitational forces here are mindbogglingly intense. The energy profound. It is a dance that
is truly only appreciable at scales like this one. This image was not taken at a single time, but
actually is a composition of almost 1000 separate images that James Webb took and then scientists
put together, giving it incredible resolution for picking out details. Let’s look farther out
again… until even James Webb is straining to see, in an image known as Webb’s First Deep Field.
This image is taken from an area so small, a single grain of sand held out at arm’s length
would block it from your view in the night sky. At this scale, individual stars are almost
completely absent – most of what you see here are not stars, which would be too small to detect
on their own, but galaxies. Here you can see the fish-lens effects being created by gravitational
warping, as (relatively) nearer objects bend light around them, distorting what lies beyond.
We can start to see the edges of the universe. In this image is one of the oldest galaxies
we have ever sighted. It is so far away, the light from when it was born at the beginning
of the universe has only just reached us. Where is it? We are going to need to zoom in.
Do you see it? It is admittedly quite small. By evaluating markers within the light given off
by this tiny red galaxy, scientists are able to identify how far it has redshifted, and thus
how long the light from it has been travelling by comparing it to normal visible light from
similar sources. This tiny dot was found to be 13.1 billion light years away. As far as we
know, given that the universe is thought to be 13.7 billion years old, this is one of the
earliest galaxies we will ever be able to see. Now, you might be disappointed by how small it is.
However, there is some room for hope. Compare this image with a similar one taken by Hubble of the
same region: Obviously, JWST’s image is crisper and clearer, giving more detail and showing more
objects. But there is one other vital distinction between these two images. Hubble took its image by
staring at this patch of sky for 10 days, slowly gathering every photon it could from this region
of space and compiling them into a single image. JWST, on the other hand, took only
half a day taking its own image. What this implies is that if JWST was able to
take such a detailed image in 1/20th of the time, imagine how detailed an image it could
take if given a comparable amount of time. In other words, this tiny little dot is
likely not the best that the JWST can do. I hope these images have given you both a sense
of the scientific breakthroughs possible with the JWST, but also just how beautiful the sights in
the universe are. Images like these blow me away. Sadly, we are going to have to be a little
patient to see what other discoveries the JWST might have in store for us. The JWST has only
just finished running through its calibrations, letting its instruments cool off and making
sure everything is working perfectly. There are queues of scientists fighting
over who gets to use it to do what over the next 5 to 10 years of its expected
lifespan. Each second is hotly contested. It will be investigating exoplanets for
signs of hospitable atmospheres for life, unveiling nebula to find the origins of stars, and
will help us to understand the difference between an old galaxy like ours and the young galaxies
that formed just after the Big Bang. With a tool as powerful as the James Webb Space Telescope,
who knows what else we are about to discover? Have you ever accidentally clicked a link to an
impostor website? Once, I got an email that I had been hacked on a particular website and needed
to reset my password. When I clicked on it, the website popped up and looked just like the
one I thought it was, but thankfully I noticed the URL looked weird before I submitted my
password, so I realised I was about to get scammed and so didn’t submit my details.
I’m now much more vigilant, I double-check website names, look if they have a valid TLS
certificate, and look for the s after HTTP. But these things aren’t always foolproof.
A great tool to have is a browser filter, software that keeps a list of known malicious
websites and warns you before you enter. NordVPN’s Threat Protection feature - as part
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more from James Webb. A big thanks to my patrons and members, if you would like to support me
to make more videos like this in the future, check the links in the description below.
All the best, and see you next time.
