First images James Webb telescope
12 Jul 2022 16:48:02 UTC
Topic 227806
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Hi!
Sorry if this is the wrong place, but I was excited about the reveal and was curious about how others viewed this.
For starters: was it me, or was the NASA stream on YT a bit choppy?
And then the images: incredible indeed! I am blown away by the level of detail (that lensing) and crispness. The analysis of exoplanet atmosphere is something I hadn't even anticipated.
I am also quite lucky, as there is an extra reveal celebration at a nearby old Imax theater where they will use the screen to show the images in all their glory, with additional background info provided by a professor who was involved with the development of Webb (one of the many!). Can't wait!
E pluribus unum
Hi Jinkei!Personally, I
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Hi Jinkei!
Personally, I don't care if it's in the wrong place... I LOVE any and all pics from the JWST!
I didn't see the NASA streamed version on YouTube video, but I'll definitely take a look. I saw them in a video on Accuweather's website, and it absolutely surprised me how clear they were. What's more, the information that they can get from interpreting the images is outstanding.
Oh man! They wouldn't want to sell tickets to the old IMAX to a U.S. citizen, would they? Hmmm... It will be great! And just wait until the JWST does more statistical data collections. I will purchase the first book published for a keep sake.
As far as the images... Man... can you imagine how far these distant galaxies are?
.....[EDIT].....
"The "deep field" image gleans a look at a point in space 4.6 billion light-years away from Earth. This means that the light captured by the telescope was emitted from these distant objects before the formation of the Earth.
The magnificent photo of new worlds is of SMACS 0723, a cluster of distant galaxies that distorts the light around it to reveal even more distant worlds. Gravity is a powerful force, and with supermassive objects in space, gravity can actually bend light.
This phenomenon is also known as gravitational lensing and can reveal objects that otherwise would be too faint to be seen. The light distortion in the SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster combined with the tremendous power of the JWST can reveal ancient objects, potentially nearly as old as the universe itself.
"These images are going to remind the world that America can do big things, and a reminder to the American people, especially our children, that there's nothing beyond our capacity," President Biden stated at Monday's event revealing the first photo from the telescope. "We can see possibilities nobody has ever seen before, go places nobody has ever gone before."
Proud member of the Old Farts Association
Ha, I am sure you'd be more
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Ha, I am sure you'd be more than welcome. There are in fact still seats left (can you friggin believe that? I don't know why, but I can't imagine that happening in the US). Heck, I'd happily buy you a ticket, only you have to make it to Holland by Friday :)
The book is an excellent idea. I have gone exclusively e-books, but for this I happily make an exception.
and literally *everything* about what JWST produces blows my mind. The time, the distances and yes, that lensing! The size of space that is warped to the extent it starts lensing is mind blowing to me.
Happy exploring! With the sharing of these images we can all join in!
Best wishes,
Lex
E pluribus unum
Speaking for myself, I don't
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Speaking for myself, I don't believe I fully understand/grasp the enormity of what I am looking at in the pictures presented.
No one can. Our minds are too
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No one can. Our minds are too small.
I relax about the big numbers and think about what the big numbers imply. All those galaxies : what are the odds of life somewhere/when amongst them ?
If there's one place with life, then there are many for the same reasons.
The bigness of things means we are not alone, even though we often behave as if we are.
Cheers, Mike.
I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...
... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal
robl wrote: Speaking for
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Hi ROBL, try this on for size...
We know that light travels at approximately 186,000 miles per second. And the Universe is so big that it is measured in Light Years, the distance light travels in one year.
A single Light Year is = 186,000 miles/sec x 60 sec/min x 60 min/hr x 24 hr/day x 365 days/yr = 5.865696×10¹² miles
Said another way, a single Light Year is = 5,865,696,000,000 miles
Or... a single Light Year is = 5.866 Trillion Miles
Now, the JWST just took a picture in space of objects that are 4.6 Billion Light Years away of Earth.
That is = 4,600,000,000 light years x 5,865,696,000,000 miles = 2.69822016×10²² miles
And that, my friends, is why we measure distances in space in terms of Light Years instead of Miles (or Kilometers, which would be worse yet).
Just how many times would you need to fill your car up if you were able to drive it for only 5.866 Trillion miles?
Proud member of the Old Farts Association
Mike Hewson wrote: I relax
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If we think about it even a little bit and said that life on a planet such as earth (in the Goldilocks zone) is the equivalent of one out of every one billion planets (1,000,000,000:1), just how many (our sized Sun) stars with planets in the Goldilocks zone are there in the Universe?
A billion? A 100 billion? A trillion? And how many of those planets in the Goldilocks zone are capable of supporting intelligent life such as earth does? It is inconceivable that we are alone in the Universe.
The nearest stars to Earth are a mere ~4.4 light years away, the Alpha Centauri triple-star system.
https://www.space.com/18964-the-nearest-stars-to-earth-infographic.html
If for some reason one of the stars in the Alpha Centauri triple-star system supported intelligent life and they wanted to visit Earth, they would need to transverse space at mind numbing speeds, or at the speed of light, for a period of ~4.4 years to reach us. And if they actually possessed Warp Drive capabilities, it would take less than ~4.4 years. That being said...
ANY alien life form capable of reaching us (assuming that there IS life other than us) would be far more advanced than us simply by the fact of being able to travel between the stars.
Proud member of the Old Farts Association
Time is the wild card. How
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Time is the wild card. How long after the galaxy forms is the radiation level low enough for complex life? How long after correct conditions does complex life evolve? How long does a complex civilization exist at a level for interstellar communication? How many years back are we looking? Is complex life even possible at that age of the galaxy.
It isn't that all those galaxies aren't teeming with life; it is that we'll need to wait another 13 billion years for the evidence of life to become visible to us.
I am certain the Milky Way is teeming with microbial life. I'm also sure there are and have been many places with complex life. Just not sure that the complex life lasts long enough for there to be more than a few at a time.
https://xkcd.com/2645/
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https://xkcd.com/2645/
Richard
Excellent one Richard. May
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Excellent one Richard. May the Webb be with you. :)
And I fully agree, Gary. So I am going to be naughty and steal an excellent quote from one of the best and most deranged writers I know:
“It is known that there are an infinite number of worlds, simply because there is an infinite amount of space for them to be in. However, not every one of them is inhabited. Therefore, there must be a finite number of inhabited worlds. Any finite number divided by infinity is as near to nothing as makes no odds, so the average population of all the planets in the Universe can be said to be zero. From this it follows that the population of the whole Universe is also zero, and that any people you may meet from time to time are merely the products of a deranged imagination.”
Douglas Adams
E pluribus unum
∞ - X = ∞ therefore X = 0
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∞ - X = ∞ therefore X = 0