Telescopio spaziale James Webb (JWST), the space observatory designed to conduct infrared astronomy and launched successfully on 25 December 2021 will enable two research teams to study earliest galaxies in the universo. The research teams will use JWST(NIRISS, NIRCam e NIRSpec) per catturare e caratterizzare alcune delle prime galassie.
The Next Generation Deep Extragalactic Exploratory Public (NGDEEP) Survey will target Hubble Ultra Deep Field by pointing telescope’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) on the primary Hubble Ultra Deep Field and Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the parallel field. The two instruments NIRISS and NIRCam will capture infrared light (redshifted due to expansion of universo). I dati verranno rilasciati immediatamente a beneficio dei ricercatori.
NGDEEP team will also identify metal elements in the early galaxies especially in smaller and dimmer ones that haven’t yet been thoroughly studied so far. Study of metal contents of galaxies is standard way to trace evolution across cosmic time. There were only hydrogen and helium in the beginning of the universo. New elements were formed by successive generations of stars. Studying metal contents of galaxies will help to plot out precisely when various elements existed and update models that project how galaxies evolved in the early universo.
The other research team will examine the primary Hubble Ultra Deep Field using the microshutter array within the telescope’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec). This will provide first large sample of earliest galaxies that existed in the early universo enabling researchers to understand them in detail.
La storia dello studio di universo primordiale iniziò nel 1995 con la decisione di focalizzarsi Hubble Space Telescope (HST) on nothing in the hitherto unexplored field in the sky. Hubble captured about 3000 images of galaxies at different stages of stellar evolution. Better known as Hubble Deep Field, these images were first pictures of early galaxies and revolutionised the field of astronomy.
As a successor of Hubble space telescope (HST), Telescopio spaziale James Webb (JWST) is carrying forward the Hubble l'eredità del telescopio nell'area di studio dei primi anni universo. Webb telescope aims to search for light from the first stars and galaxies that formed in the Universo after the Big Bang to study the formation and evolution of galaxies, to understand the formation of stars and planetary systems and to study planetary systems and the origins of life.
I primi universo in the first several hundred million years after the big bang was a very different place. It was semi-opaque. This is when the first galaxies in the universo were beginning to form. Many distant galaxies have been spotted by the telescopes but none earlier than 400 million years after the big bang. What were galaxies that existed even earlier like? The above mentioned, two research teams will answer just this by revealing details of the earliest chapters of galaxy evolution.
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Fonte:
- NASA 2022. Webb della NASA per scoprire le ricchezze dell'universo primordiale, pubblicato il 22 giugno 2022. Disponibile online all'indirizzo https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2022/news-2022-015.html Consultato il 23 giugno 2022.
- Prasad U., 2021. James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): il primo osservatorio spaziale dedicato allo studio dell'universo primordiale. Scientifica europea. Pubblicato il 6 novembre 2021. Disponibile online all'indirizzo http://scientificeuropean.co.uk/sciences/space/james-webb-space-telescope-jwst-the-first-space-observatory-dedicated-to-the-study-of-early-universe/
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