Will we find a new planet? Your burning question about this new image of our cosmos from the NASA space telescope
NASA has released more images of the galaxy thousands of light years away, captured by their James Webb Space Telescope.
And that raises a lot of questions: Will we discover new planets? What would you see from inside one of these galaxies? How big are these pictures really?
In an effort to unravel the latest discoveries in our cosmos, we ask you to ask the experts your burning questions.
Here’s a bit of what we learned (you can follow the full Q&A here):
These galaxies don’t look like this anymore… and may not even exist
“If the images are billions of years old, can you presume that some of the ‘bodies’ we see don’t exist today? They may look like lots of stars but they are images of the past, if you know what I mean. What’s really there now.”
– Nigel
Astrophysicist Robin Cook from the University of Western Australia said “absolutely”.
“As astronomers, we actually act as great historians – the further we peek into the universe, the further we look back.
“That’s because light takes time to travel between objects and us, meaning the light we see from these colliding galaxies comes from them. 290 million years agoso we look that far into the past.
“I have no doubt this system will look very different from the inhabitants of the planets around the star in these galaxies.”
There’s a chance Webb could find the ‘naughty world’
“Is Webb able to detect planets orbiting stars in nearby galaxies?”
– Ken
Jonti Horner, an astrobiologist and astronomer based at the University of Southern Queensland, said it was unlikely Webb would find a planet in another galaxy, but it was possible he could detect “‘free-floating planets’ or ‘naughty world’ among the stars”.
“Because it’s so hard. But the main thing is that Webb isn’t going to look for new planets (to do that, we exoplanet astronomers have to spend time, and it’s not going to happen!), but rather will study known planets to learn more about them.
“It’s not set to discover new planets (though there’s always the possibility of finding some by chance – especially ‘free-floating planets’ or ‘naughty world’ among the stars).
“So JWST will teach us a lot about exoplanets — but it won’t be a good tool for finding them, and anything found (by chance) will likely to be in our own backyard.
“But having said all that, the only prediction you can make that are accurate is that all predictions will prove wrong in the end – so I’ll say pay attention to this spacejust in case JWST proves me wrong.”
If you stay in this photo you will be ‘beaten by radiation’
“What does space look like from inside a cosmic cliff nebula? Does it look red and ‘gassy’, or is it our perspective that makes it look that way from afar?”
– Pip
Astronomer Kim-Vy Tran from UNSW said if we were in a nebula, we would see the universe through a cloud of gas, like a lighthouse in the fog.
“If you happened to be near one of the most massive and hottest stars, you would become exposed to radiation it’s like a trillion UV index!”
So, probably not a place to move to anytime soon.
Stephan’s Quintet will be ‘a great night view’
“How does it feel to be live on the planet in one of the galaxies in Quintet Stephan? Is everything going to be turbulent or is it mostly just a fun night watching?”
– Reader
Astronomer Kim Vy-Tran says it can make for a great nighttime display, especially if you have infrared eyes.
“With these galaxies scattered across the sky, it will be an uneven area of light and dark like when we look at different parts of us. Milky Way itself.
“If we looked towards the center of our galaxy, we wouldn’t see much of the visible light because of all the dust, but you can see through the dust with infrared light.
“If you look away from a galaxy where there isn’t a lot of stars and dust, you’ll have a more ‘ordinary’ view but still. full of stars.”
You can tell how old a star is by its color
Some readers are curious about this image of Stephan’s Quintet, which actually gives us a 290 million year old view.
Astronomer Robin Cook from the University of Western Australia said “we know, from looking at the stars in our own galaxy, that their colors mark very different points throughout their life spans”.
“blue star very young and hot, depleting its fuel very quickly. red starmaybe counterintuitive, relatively colder and flagging the next stage of a star’s life.
“By gathering all the light from the stars in these galaxies, we generally get directly connect the visible colors for galaxies with an average age for the system, which happens to be 290 million years in this example — relatively short timescales in the grand scheme of the cosmos.”
How do telescopes capture and illustrate color?
“Since there is blue in the image, has the color range been adjusted?”
– Dave Jones.
ABC senior science reporter Genelle Weule says the image has been taken in infrared light.
“It was a very long light beyond what we could see.
“But the team has used blue, green and red filters to translate infrared wavelengths into color.
“It’s like translating what you would see if you had infrared eyes into colors you were familiar with.”
Where is the James Webb Telescope now?
Launched in December 2021 from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket, Webb orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.6 million kilometers from Earthin the area of space called second Lagrange point.
According to NASA, the Lagrange point is a position in space where objects sent there tend to stay.
At the Lagrange point, the gravitational attraction of the two large masses is exactly equal to the centripetal force required for a small object to move with them.
These points in space can be used by the spacecraft to reduce the fuel consumption needed to stay in position.
Point L2 of the Earth-Sun system is home to the WMAP spacecraft and is now the home of the James Webb Space Telescope.
L2 is ideal for astronomy as it is a spacecraft close enough to easily communicate with Earth, can keep the Sun, Earth and Moon behind the spacecraft for solar power and (with suitable visors) provide a clear view of space for our telescope.
What happened to the Hubble Telescope?
NASA anticipates that Hubble will stick around for many more years and will continue to make groundbreaking observations, working closely with other space observatories including the James Webb Space Telescope to advance our knowledge of the cosmos.
NASA has also made it clear that Webb is not a replacement for Hubble, but a successor.
Here’s how NASA explains their differences:
This is another reason why Webb is not a replacement for Hubble; not the same ability. Webb will mainly look at the universe in the infrared, while Hubble will study it primarily at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths (though it has some infrared capabilities). Webb also has a much larger mirror than Hubble. This larger light gathering area means that Webb can peer further into the past than Hubble was able to do. Hubble is in a very close orbit around the earthwhile Webb will be 1.5 million kilometers away at the second Lagrange (L2) point.
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