The Webb Telescope – Gamechanger with cosmic relevations | DW News

The Webb Telescope – Gamechanger with cosmic relevations | DW News

In less than two years since launching the James web Space Telescope has changed the way we understand the universe for scientists the images it’s taken offer new possibilities for astrophysics and for the rest of us they are simply stunning to behold so let’s have a look at a few of the best ones

Snapped in 2023 the James web Space Telescope doesn’t orbit Earth unlike the International Space Station instead it circles the Sun 2 1/2 million kilm out from our planet at What’s called the lrange 2 point the instruments are sheltered by a multi-layered high-tech Shield that screens out nearly all solar

Radiation the telescope’s 25 squ M of mirror made up of hexagonal segments are able to detect radiation largely in the infrared part of the spectrum that means its sensors can also provide information on targets that are hidden by dust and gas at V Mass distances the James web is

Much more sensitive than its 30-year-old predecessor the Hubble Space Telescope and it works differently Hubble detects primarily visible lights um which is the light that we see with our own eyes while web observes in the infrared so they are really complementary then web has is the largest mirror in space much

Larger than than Hubble um and that gives it a sensitivity 100 times better than Hubble in 2023 the James web for instance revealed galaxies at distances never observed before snapshots of very early periods in the history of the universe we call the James o space telescope a time machine and in the

First years uh it has already uncovered thousands of these very early luminous objects and first galaxies in the universe and some of the record holders um are found to be um at 300 million years after the big bank so that’s really um a surprise but researchers are

Also mining its images for data on things much closer to home like this recent picture of the heart of our own Milky Way other gorgeous shots taken in 2023 include this one of a spiral galaxy called M51 stunning in its complexity and new takes on a well-known Celestial phenomenon called The Ring Nebula

Snapped in both the near infrared range and the mid infrared the telescope also detected a crucial carbon molecule for the first time in the dust of a forming planetary system around 1500 light years away this discovery is really exciting because carbon molecules are the foundation of all known life and finding

These molecules can really help us understanding how life developed on Earth but also in other places in the universe the James web Space Telescope also looked with startling Clarity and detail at planets in our own solar system along with their moons in 2023 the telescope revealed even more of the Wonders and

Mysteries of the universe around us and should continue to do so for decades to come some fantastic images there we could talk more about them with science journalist and astronomer Daniel Fischer Daniel thanks for joining us tell me what your favorite results have been this year from the

Telescope oh there is so much going on um once the uh First Data from the telescope reached the public reached the public as well as a scientific world the people have been falling all over themselves analyzing the flood of data and um it’s going everywhere from the

Solar system to the farest Lees of the universe where we have good stuff if I want to pick one result I found particularly stunning that happened quite close spy in the Orion Nebula where a lot of pre floating planets so to speak planets without stars were

Found and many of them came in pairs these jumbos as they were called were one of the biggest surprises I must say we had this year but there is so much going on we have several new scientific papers some dozens of pages long every day since the middle of last year and

This is just the beginning this will continue for several decades to come so we can already say that web is the big Discovery machine of the stomy these days what makes it such a big Discovery machine as you say I mean for for someone who’s not a scientist it’s just

Taking images of space how does how do these images help us understand what we’re looking at the origins of the universe first of all this telescope is very big 6.5 meters in diameter and it looks Into The Infrareds which means that you can both look deeper into Dusty

And dense things close by and into the most distant Universe where the shift of the expanding universe is U moving everything from the visible into the infrared light and um we are what we are seeing there are lots of uh distant galaxies more than expected and this is

One of the biggest surprises so far and one of the biggest subjects of discussion how many are there too how much is there going on that’s beyond expectations and um do we have to change part of our understanding of the early Universe based on these data there’s a

Huge discussion going on just before when Before Christmas a new paper came out that suggested that there were black holes from before the Big Bang that were playing a role there but very funny what people are thinking about these days but this is all real science based now on

Real data and this is why this telescope has been so important and will be so important to actually understand our Cosmic uh our Cosmic unit our Cosmic home okay so they have black holes before the Big Bang that that already is probably too much for me to think about

For me for me as well so that’s one of the big questions what are some of the other big questions that are still left I mean there’s a lot of course but some of the immediate big questions left to answer the one of course is what’s going

On in the early universe and how did this all begin and um what does it mean for the future but also the question is the question everybody ask is is there life out there was already briefly mentioned in the clip that um we disc discovering some interesting molecules

In interstellar clouds um but what’s probably more important is Hubble Is very well suited to to study the atmospheres of the planets of other stars also something we couldn’t even dream about like 25 years ago and um we already have seen some test observations some early observations that show the

Capabilities of the telescope so that may well happen that in the next 5 to 10 years we discover some really weird unexpected chemistry in the atmospheres of other planets we may which may tell us something about how life might have evolved or might be evolving maybe in

Other worlds that would be one of the greatest recoveries of all times I say good stuff Daniel fiser science journalist going boldly where others have gone before DW thanks very much for your insights on the telescope thanks for having me

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