Click on the thumbnail below to see a full-screen image of the early universe taken by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3.
There are a whole lot of galaxies in this image. Among them you can see the earliest galaxies ever spotted by humans: ones from way back when the universe was just 600-800 million years old (circled in yellow to the right). Think about the light from these galaxies traveling 13 billion light years, with each of those billions of light-years being equal to 9,460,730,472,581 kilometers. Those galaxies are small (1% of the mass of the Milky Way) and so young that, according to an analysis of the light coming from them, they have a dearth of the heavy elements created in supernovas. Instead, they are heavy with the hydrogen and helium created at the beginning of the universe. To find and capture the image of these galaxies is an impressive achievement for which the scientists of NASA and the European Space Agency should be congratulated.
Wide Field Camera 3 is the newest camera installed on the Hubble Space Telescope; the image you see here (and the increased astronomical understanding made possible by it) was made possible by the push in 2007 and 2008 to resurrect Hubble one last time. Next month the Large Hadron Collider will fire up to full strength here on Earth in an attempt to create a supermassive Higgs boson particle that lends matter its mass. In 2014 the even-better Webb Telescope will replace Hubble, but not in its place: the Webb Telescope will be placed a million miles from Earth to reap the benefit of a really cold and really dark location.
Wow. What a great time to be alive.
“In 2014 the even-better Webb Telescope will replace it”
The Webb telescope will not “replace” the Hubble. The Webb will observe in the infrared band of light. Hubble records mostly in visible light, and will be replaced by very large ground based telescopes with adaptive optics, such at the EURO50, E-ELT, TMT and LAMA.
Since the Webb is optimised for infrared, it WILL be even better than Hubble at making these types of images.
Light from these ancient galaxies is shifted to the red because of the expansion on the universe (you can see them red in the photo.) When the light was emitted it was blue light from hot fast burning start like Rigel in Orion. Now its been stretched out into very long wavelengths because space has expanded under its feet as it traveled the long distances.
Webb will provide a look back, hopefully right up to the formation of the first massive stars and re-ionization of universe at the end of the “Dark Ages” (between 400,000 and 100 million years) when the first light of new stars appeared in the universe.
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/news/2009/su200918.html
This Hubble camera records in visible and infrared light. For infrared work, the Webb telescope will replace it.
“Next month the Large Hadron Collider will fire up to full strength here on Earth in an attempt to create a supermassive Higgs boson particle that lends matter its mass. In 2014 the even-better Webb Telescope will replace it. Wow. What a great time to be alive.”
actually, the way that is written you are claiming Webb will replace the LHC!!!
“it” was unclear could easily have been the telescope not the camera.
You’re right; that’s not what I intended, and I’ll fix that language.
just having a laugh.
great article… the mass galaxy pics are always my favorite.
Me, too. Personally, they flip me out if I look at them too long and too hard. It makes me feel like I’m standing on a very small ball and I might just fall off! Thinking about the scale of the universe makes it hard to take so many of the human-centric models of the world seriously.
“”We generally refer to the James Webb Space Telescope as a successor for Hubble. It’s not really a replacement for Hubble; it’s intended to take the next, deeper look into the universe,” said John Decker, deputy project manager for the James Webb project, based at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. “
Yes, sir! Everybody, listen up! It is a successor! As in SUCCESS! Excelsior! Dirigo! Cum Laude!
ha ha ahhhahh
“In 2014 the even-better Webb Telescope will replace Hubble”
someone didn’t get the message…..
could. not. resist. typing. snark….
I don’t know why but this semantic debate just stuck in my head when I heard about it a few years ago. There were people saying that NASA was “hiding” the fact that we would no longer have an in-space visual spectrum telescope..because they didn’t want to do the shuttle flight to fix it…so the webb was called a replacement when EVERYBODY KNEW it was not!
and on and on… so it jumps out at me… sorry… last post!!