Highlights from James Webb’s first two months of science operations

Historically, our grandest views of deep space came from Hubble.

The Cartwheel galaxy, shown at right, is a stunning example of an imperfect ring galaxy, where a central nucleus of old stars and a bright ring of young stars are connected by a thin bridge of gas and stars throughout it. The cause of this ring, an interloping galaxy that smashed through the Cartwheel, is at the top left of the image, itself forming new stars as a result of the interaction.

As of July 2022, however, a superior space telescope has emerged.

This near-infrared image from JWST showcases a variety of features present in the Cartwheel galaxy and its companions that cannot be revealed by Hubble. Hubble’s smaller size, lower resolution, warmer temperatures, and inferior instrumentation ensure that JWST’s unique capabilities will reveal features in almost any object that have never been seen previously.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) takes us beyond what anything else has seen.

This image features data from 10 different JWST filters: 6 from the near-infrared and 4 from the mid-infrared. As a result, features that include stars, gas, dust, and various molecular signatures can all be revealed at once, showcasing where star formation is occurring and will occur in the future. Molecular gas, present in great abundance, is the key.

Nearby, Jupiter appears as never before.

This three-filter view of the planet Jupiter from JWST’s NIRCam features a 3.6 micron (red) channel, a 2.12 micron (yellow-green) channel, and a 1.5 micron (blue) channel. All of these wavelengths are aligned as best as possible given the planet’s rotation, and then composited to reveal the extraordinary features seen here.

Its bands, rings, aurorae, and moons appear alongside background galaxies.

This animation showcases JWST’s unique near-infrared views of Jupiter. In addition to the bands, the great red spot, and the “atmospheric haze” visible at the day/night boundary of Jupiter, a number of moon, ring, and auroral features are seen and labeled. A single NIRCam or MIRI frame is just barely large enough to hold all of Jupiter’s disk within it, enabling spectacular views of this world with JWST. With an expected lifetime to last until the mid-2040s, JWST will observe multiple Jovian solstices and equinoxes, but won’t last until Uranus reaches its equinox phase.

JWST viewed exoplanets directly with infrared imaging.

Around the star HIP 65426, which JWST obscures with its high-contrast coronagraph, an orbiting gas giant exoplanet has been revealed. Combining two near-infrared and two mid-infrared filters, we can reveal this planet, which is ~10,000 times fainter than the star it orbits.

Spectroscopically, transits detect absorbed light

Transiting exoplanets don’t block the same fraction of a star’s light in all different wavelengths, but rather different fractions are absorbed and transmitted in a wavelength-dependent way. Just as Earth’s atmosphere preferentially transmits redder light but scatters bluer light, the exoplanet WASP-39b allows different fractions of light through its atmosphere in a wavelength-dependent way that JWST can detect.

and transmitted light: revealing molecular presences.

With its first science release, JWST revealed the presence of water, spectroscopically, in an exoplanet’s atmosphere. With its measurement of WASP-39b, it has revealed the abundant presence of carbon dioxide in an exoplanet’s atmosphere. No doubt, more molecules in varying concentrations will be found around a variety of worlds with JWST.

Star-forming nebulae display unprecedented details.

The near-infrared view of the Tarantula Nebula taken with JWST is higher in resolution and broader in wavelength coverage than any previous view. It heavily expands on what Hubble taught us, and this wide-field view of our neighbor galaxy, the LMC, still showcases just 0.003778 square degrees in the sky. It would take 10.9 million images of this size to cover the entire sky. The super star cluster to the right of center, R136, is the largest, most massive new star cluster found within our entire Local Group of galaxies, and has already blown a huge cavity in the gas that led to its formation.

From new, young, blue stars,

The central concentration of this young star cluster found in the heart of the Tarantula Nebula is known as R136, and contains many of the most massive stars known. Among them is R136a1, which comes in at about ~260 solar masses and shines brighter than more than 8 million suns, making it the heaviest known star. Although great numbers of cooler, redder stars are also present, the brightest, bluest ones dominate this image, although they have the shortest lifetime, living for between 1-10 million years only. Within a cloud of gas, the process of core fragmentation leads to enormous populations of large numbers of stars.

to gaseous features,

As spectroscopic imaging with JWST reveals, chemicals like atomic hydrogen, molecular hydrogen, and hydrocarbon compounds occupy different locations in space within the Tarantula Nebula, showcasing how varied even a single star-forming region can be. Atoms, ions, and molecules all exist throughout the cosmos.

JWST showcases what Hubble cannot.

This animation shows the transition between JWST’s near-infrared views, which showcase new stars and light-absorbing dust, versus the mid-infrared view, where warm dust is illuminated and stars are practically invisible. These views take us far beyond what Hubble was capable of seeing, and into a wavelength-and-resolution realm we’ve never entered before.

Meanwhile, JWST’s initial alignment image grew spectacularly.

JWST’s diffraction spikes, seen in great detail around the star 2MASS J17554042+6551277, are the same spikes seen in the first successful alignment image. The science data, as evidenced by the glorious detail of background galaxies, has helped revolutionize what we know about the Universe in, thus far, under one full year of science operations.

Now a 140+ megapixel view, it expansively reveals far-flung galaxies.

This small-seeming image is a scaled down version of the full ~140 megapixel field-of-view comprehensively examined after JWST had been fully aligned and calibrated. The bright star at the lower-left of the photo is the famed “alignment star” from JWST’s first aligned image. There is practically no stray light detectable at all.

Just 1% of this view contains ~100 identifiable objects.

This is a full-resolution view of just 1% of the field used to capture the star 2MASS J17554042+6551277, which was responsible for being JWST’s first alignment target. About ~100 galaxies are revealed here, indicating that around ~10,000 galaxies must be present and visible to JWST over the entire field-of-view of the full image.

Massive, evolved, complex galactic shapes appear at all observed distances.

The early results of the GLASS Early Release Science program reveal over 200 sources that span a variety of ranges in redshift and mass. This helps teach us what shapes galaxies take on over a range of masses and stages in cosmic time/evolution, revealing a number of very massive, very early, yet very evolved-looking galaxies. If we can see them now, they’ll always be visible, a contrast to the myth of the disappearing Universe.

Additionally, disk galaxy candidates surprisingly appeared at extremely early times.

The Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS Survey) broke the record for largest deep-field image taken by JWST, previously held by the first lensing cluster image released. This small patch of sky, near the handle of the Big Dipper, contains some ~200 luminous disk galaxy candidates found within the first ~3 billion years of the Universe’s history. The deepest views of the early Universe have given astronomers and astrophysicists much to ponder.

JWST also viewed the most distant star ever: Earendel.

This view of Earendel, presently the most distant star known, comes courtesy of the JWST. With 8 NIRCam filters having observed this star, we’ve been able to determine that it’s most likely a single star, ~1,000,000 times as luminous as the Sun, with surface temperatures of around ~15,000 K and a lensing magnification of at least a factor of 4,000. Follow-up observations, including spectra, will be taken later in 2022.

But arguably its greatest images are of individual galaxies.

The spiral galaxy NGC 7496, previously viewed by Hubble, shows a remarkable amount of illuminated dust lanes, copious amounts of feedback from new stars, and the earliest stages of star-formation across a galaxy in gory details. With JWST, we’re seeing the Universe in detail as never before.

JWST’s views reveal gas, dust, stars, and more.

This view of the gas, dust, stars, and more in galaxy NGC 1365 comes to us courtesy of the JWST and the PHANGS team, which works to investigate the detailed properties of dust-rich star-forming galaxies. Images like this help allow us to understand how and where stars form over the course of a galaxy’s life.

Central black hole-containing cores shine in mid-infrared light.

This mid-infrared (MIRI) view of the luminous infrared galaxy VV 114, shown alongside the older Hubble view, reveals a brilliant nucleus in the eastern portion as well as a western component rich in young star clusters. The presence of an active galactic nucleus in the SW portion of the eastern region is revealed, along with ~40 star-forming knots, ~10 of which have no optical counterpart. The presence of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons are seen as well.

Star-forming gas bridges appear between interacting galaxies.

The galaxy IC 1623B, viewed in a variety of near-infrared filters with JWST, reveals details about the interstellar medium between two active, interacting, star-forming galaxies. These NIRCam images represent only a portion of the total data, which will include NIRSpec and MIRI images, that will be taken as respects this galaxy.

From Hubble,

This view of the Phantom galaxy, also known as Messier 74/NGC 628, combined blue, visible, and near-infrared images from Hubble, along with a particular emission line of hydrogen to create this composite. While this was previously our best view of the Phantom galaxy, revealing many interesting features, JWST’s views of it have already revealed so much more.

to JWST’s near-infrared eyes,

This purely infrared view of the Phantom Galaxy, Messier 74, showcases cooler stars and intricate dusty structures found lining and between the galaxy’s spiral arms. These structures have only been hinted at in previous views; JWST’s unique capabilities have revealed them for the first time.

to the eerie, unfamiliar mid-infrared views,

This mid-infrared view taken with JWST shows the Phantom Galaxy (M74) with prominent and well-defined spiral arms. All told, the PHANGS collaboration will study 19 nearby star-forming galaxies to better understand how and when star-formation is triggered, measuring the masses and ages of star clusters inside in the process.

the Universe is coming into focus as never before under Webb’s watchful eyes.

This three-panel animation shows three different views of the center of the Phantom Galaxy, M74 (NGC 628). The familiar color image is the Hubble (optical) view, the second panel showcases near-infrared views from both Hubble and Webb, while the mid-infrared panel shows the warm dust that will eventually form new stars at a later time, containing data from JWST alone.

Mostly Mute Monday tells an astronomical story in images, visuals, and no more than 200 words. Talk less; smile more.