What James Webb Space Telescope Saw Near the Edge of the Universe

Thanks to NordVPN for sponsoring today's video. This is one of the most hotly requested topics for this channel. Even if you didn't actively request it yourself, you couldn't have missed the buzz around the James Webb Space Telescope. It is more powerful than any other space telescope, including Hubble. So big, it had to be folded up like origami to fit onto the rocket that carried it into space. So precise and sensitive, it has to be kept at temperatures not much warmer than absolute zero to prevent its own internal heat radiation from getting in the way of its sensors. So expensive, it cost $10 billion to make, and so complicated, it took decades to complete. 300 potential failure points stood between it and proper functionality. But now, it is here. And it has an incredible mission, to study planetary systems for evidence of life, to understand the formation of planets, stars and galaxies, and to peer out across the universe to objects so far away, the light they gave off has been travelling for almost as long as the universe is believed to have existed. In other words, the James Webb Space Telescope was built to spot the first stars and galaxies at the very edge of our knowable universe, objects from the beginning of time. And the first images have started coming in. I'm Alex McColgan, and you're watching Astrum. Join with me on a journey as we look over the early photographs coming out of the James Webb Space Telescope, and see for ourselves the power and precision of this engineering miracle. It's already promising to be spectacular. For those who are new to this channel, we've already spent some time watching the James Webb Space Telescope as it's gone from a work in progress to a fully realised piece of hardware. It was first conceived in the 1990s and was originally intended to cost only a billion dollars and to launch in 2007. However, numerous setbacks and delays plagued the project, pushing it back again and again. It was only in December 2021 that it finally launched, and it has been spending the intervening months slowly unpacking itself, powering up its systems and testing its hardware. It is a 6,500kg monster, with a sun shield whose 14 by 21m dimensions are around the size of a tennis court. Its mirror for capturing light is 6 times larger by area than Hubble's lens, which allows it to pick up more photons from further away to create crisp images. It boasts numerous cameras and scientific instruments which allow it to see across the infrared spectrum. This is a feature that is vital to its unique mission. Due to the expansion of the universe, all of the light from the furthest reaches of space have been stretched to the point that no matter what they were to start with, they are all at least infrared light now. So the only way to see these light sources is with an infrared telescope. On top of that, infrared is much better at punching through dust clouds and other obscuring debris, giving the James Webb Telescope the incredible ability to see objects that are beyond the sight of Hubble. I compare this telescope with Hubble a lot, as the James Webb Space Telescope was originally intended to be Hubble's successor. However, given their slightly different fields of view, Hubble can mostly see in visible light spectrums, while the James Webb Space Telescope can almost exclusively see infrared and can't see some visible light spectrums at all, it's more accurate to say that the two telescopes complement each other rather than compete. They work together to form a powerful duo, expanding our understanding of the universe. But that's not what you're here for. You're here to see what James Webb can do. Beginning in our own galaxy, let's gradually expand our vision outwards towards the edge of the knowable universe. You are in for some spectacular sights. The first stop on our journey is a place known as the Cosmic Cliffs. The Cosmic Cliffs, otherwise known as NGC 3324, are part of the Carina Nebula, about 7,600 light years away from us. These peaks you are looking at are massive structures, around 7 light years high, and what you see here is only a portion of the nebula as a whole. The actual nebula is much larger, and contains a hollowed out centre, where the stellar winds given off by stars have blasted all nearby dust away from them. What we are looking at here is the edge of this hollowed out bubble. Scientists are very interested in this region of space for one simple reason. It helps answer questions about the formation of stars. Thanks to the stellar winds in this zone, dust and matter conglomerate together, forming a birthing place for stars. However, for all our stargazing, there are still many mysteries surrounding this process. How exactly do they form? What do the different stages look like? It's difficult to tell. Part of the difficulty with finding the answers is the dust itself, both vital to the process and also a massive impediment to seeing it happen. It wraps around the forming stars like a protective cocoon, stopping scientists from seeing very clearly what is going on at the moments we'd like to see the most. James Webb fixes that. Not only does this image provide more detail than Hubble's image, but thanks to James Webb's onboard MIRI, or Mid-Infrared Instrument, we can peel back the layers of dust and see what lies within. See how much clearer the image is. This will provide scientists with data on the formation of stars for a long time yet. So much for the birth of stars. At our next stop, the James Webb Space Telescope uncovers more about the end of their lifespan. And for this, let's look a little closer to home to NGC 3132, otherwise known as the Southern Ring Nebula. The image on the left was taken by James Webb's near-infrared camera, while the one on the right was taken by MIRI. This is a planetary nebula, although technically that term is a bit of a misnomer. While regular nebulas are the birthplace of stars, a planetary nebula is not a place planets form. Instead, it was just an unhelpful naming convention used by early astronomers who noted the round shapes of these nebulas, and they thought they looked a bit like planets. The name stuck, even though our interpretation of the name has moved on. Planetary nebulas like this one are formed when dust and gas are blasted out from dying stars towards the end of their lifetimes. Knowing the chemical composition of this dust is useful, as understanding what material exists in the universe helps us to understand what later waves of stars might be made of. So once again, James Webb's ability to peel back the layers of dust to see what lies within is invaluable. Compare this with Hubble's image to get a sense of the increased detail that James Webb is able to bring to bear. From this, scientists have learned that the second star within the system still has not actually exploded, so the formation of its own planetary nebula is still likely to come. We can also get a better sense of how the gravitational interactions of the two stars stir the nebula, mixing the dust together in fascinating patterns. Now let's look a little further out, beyond our galaxy. If we want to see star creation, it makes sense to find a location like this. 161,000 light years away from us lies the Tarantula Nebula, so named because it evokes the idea of a giant tarantula lurking within its silken web. Aside from the obvious otherworldly beauty, this area is of particular note to scientists because of its similarity to a period in the universe's history known as the Cosmic Noon. At that point, which to our best understanding took place about a billion years after the universe began, star creation was at its most prolific. It is thought that conditions there would have looked something like this. James Webb has been able to spot stars here that are only just coming into being, a fascinating period of time to study. Let's look further out again. As our gaze extends, we lose track of individual stars and start seeing things on a galactic scale. Even here, there are beautiful dances being played out. Stephan's Quintet is a formation of five galaxies, although one is not really next to the others, but just looks that way from our perspective. Famous for being featured in the film It's a Wonderful Life, it is thought that four of these galaxies will one day collide. Indeed, two are already doing so. James Webb allows us to see clearly the brilliantly hot dust being kicked off as these two central galaxies circle each other. The gravitational forces here are mind-bogglingly intense, the energy profound. It is a dance that is truly only appreciable at scales like this one. This image was not taken at a single time, but actually is a composition of almost 1000 separate images that James Webb took and then scientists put together, giving it incredible resolution for picking out details. Let's look further out again, until even James Webb is straining to see, in an image known as Webb's First Deep Field. This image is taken from an area so small, a single grain of sand held out at arm's length would block it from your view in the night sky. At this scale, individual stars are almost completely absent, most of what you can see here are not stars, which would be too small to detect on their own, but galaxies. Here you can see the fish lens effects being created by gravitational warping, as relatively nearer objects bend light around them, distorting what lies beyond. We start to see the edges of the universe. In this image is one of the oldest galaxies we have ever sighted. It is so far away, the light from it when it was born at the beginning of the universe has only just reached us. Where is it? We are going to need to zoom in. Do you see it? It's admittedly quite small. By evaluating markers within the light given off by this tiny red galaxy, scientists are able to identify how far it has redshifted, and thus how long the light from it has been travelling by comparing it to normal visible light from similar sources. This tiny dot was found to be 13.1 billion light years away. As far as we know, given that the universe is thought to be 13.7 billion years old, this is one of the earliest galaxies that we will ever be able to see. Now, you might be disappointed by how small it is, however, there is some room for hope. Compare this image with one taken by Hubble of the same region. Obviously, James Webb's image is crisper and clearer, giving more detail and showing more objects, but there is one vital distinction between these two images. Hubble took its image by staring at this patch of sky for 10 days, slowly gathering every photon it could from this region of space and compiling them into a single image. James Webb, on the other hand, took only half a day taking its own image. What this implies is that if James Webb was able to take such a detailed image in one twentieth of the time, imagine how detailed an image it could take if it was given a comparable amount of time. In other words, this tiny little dot is likely not the best that James Webb can do. I hope these images have given you a sense of the scientific breakthroughs possible with the James Webb Space Telescope, but also just how beautiful the sights of the universe are. Images like these blew me away. Sadly, we are going to have to be a little patient to see what discoveries James Webb might have in store for us. James Webb has only just finished running through its calibrations, letting its instruments cool off and making sure everything is working perfectly. There are queues of scientists fighting over who gets to use it to do what over the next 5-10 years of its expected lifespan. Each second is hotly contested. It will be investigating exoplanets for signs of hospitable atmospheres for life, unveiling nebulae to find the origin of stars, and will help us to understand the difference between an old galaxy like ours and the young galaxies that formed just after the Big Bang. With a tool as powerful as the James Webb Space Telescope, who knows what else we are about to discover. Have you ever accidentally clicked a link to an imposter website? Once I got an email that I had been hacked on a particular website and I needed to reset my password. When I clicked on it, the website popped up and looked just like the one I thought it was, but thankfully I noticed the URL before I submitted my password, so I realised I was about to get scammed and so didn't submit my details. I'm now much more vigilant, I double check website names, look if they have valid TLS certificates, and look for the S after HTTP. But these things aren't always foolproof. 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