Five images and a million new questions

Subject: Science and Technology

Section: Space Science

Context:

The first five images sent by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope created a buzz of excitement among scientists, astronomy enthusiasts, and laypeople alike.
One of them, a deep-field image of a galaxy that is five billion light years away, shows in the background other galaxies that are 13 billion light years away, very close to the beginning of the universe and time.
Then there are images of an exoplanet, a planetary nebula, a cluster of five galaxies called ‘Stephan’s Quintet’, and a galaxy called Carina.
To take the deep-field image, with a telescope like the Hubble, it would take a month-long exposure to get pictures of lesser resolution and depth; with the Webb, it was just half-a-day.
We have learnt that in the centre of the planetary nebula, there are two stars, not one — one dying and the other in an early stage of evolution.
Red shift of 1,100 means that the universe was 1,101 times smaller than now.
Unlike other telescopes, the Webb can see through dust. That is how we are able to see into the planetary nebula (catalogued NGC 3132), which is about 2,500 light years away.

What are we seeing in Stephan’s Quintet?

The Stephan’s Quintet picture really demonstrates Webb’s capabilities.
It is not one picture, but a thousand exposures, from different positions, stitched together to form a wide-field image.
In the topmost galaxy there is a vertical line, a jet emanating from the centre of the galaxy.
It means there is some material being ejected from around the black hole there.
Webb has also measured the spectrum of the gas surrounding the black hole, which is a first. That will tell us the composition of the material.