Thanks to the European Space Agency (ESA), NASA, and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), we can now see a mesmerizing video of how the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) zooms in towards the Southern Ring Nebula that was revealed on July 12.
James Webb revealed the first full-color photos of the Universe just a few weeks ago. Except for the Southern Ring Nebula, the images also revealed the Carina Nebula, Stephan’s Quintet showcasing five galaxies, WASP-96b, as well as the SMACS 0723 cluster of galaxies and stars.
As for now, we have a new video that seems to be telling us all how small and insignificant we all are in the Cosmos. Maybe that wasn’t the purpose of the video, but it sure shows us the majesty and immensity of the Universe:
Travel to the Southern Ring Nebula in this zoom in video and enjoy once more the #NIRCam view #WebbSeesFarther pic.twitter.com/KtiI01a7JQ
— ESA Webb Telescope (@ESA_Webb) July 27, 2022
Luckily for all of us, the James Webb Space Telescope is also aiming at other space objects except for those mentioned. Even one from our own “cosmic backyard” was taken into account: planet Jupiter. Shortly after the telescope revealed the cosmic objects mentioned above, it has also shown images of the gas giant of our solar system.
umm who else saw this in the commissioning report document?? 😍😍😍😍🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯https://t.co/AzwQCf6rat pic.twitter.com/nq13fxdsAM
— Erin M. May, PhD (@_astronomay) July 12, 2022
The commissioning report writes:
Observing a bright planet and its satellites and rings was expected to be challenging, due to scattered light that may affect the science instrument employed, but also the fine guidance sensor must track guide stars near the bright planet,
These observations verified the expectation that guide star acquisition works successfully as long as Jupiter is at least 140″ away from the FGS, consistent with pre-flight modeling.
NASA still has ambitious plans for the future regarding the James Webb Space Telescope. One of the goals is to uncover new data about Sagittarius A*, the supermassive black hole that’s located at the core of our Milky Way galaxy.
