Vodi X Welcomes Strategic Investor Nova Ecofund

Vodi X is proud to announce that Nova Ecofund as one of the strategic investor in the company. Nova Ecofund consists of Bitrise Capital, Consensus Lab, Chain Capital, Tron, QRC Group, China…

独家优惠奖金 100% 高达 1 BTC + 180 免费旋转

You All Have Seen The Images From James Webb Space Telescope. Do You Know What Each Of Those Mean?

First up, am neither an astronomer nor a cosmologist. Am just someone who has this habit of looking up from time to time, and wondering what’s up there.

Sometimes, I could be in the middle of my walk, and I will look up. Sometimes, I could be doing my work and I will look outside my window (not to look down), but to look up. Sometimes, I could be talking to someone and I will just look up. And there are times when I actually take my car and drive out of my city to camp in dark open fields with my telescope, no points for guessing — just to look up.

Curious to ask, why do I look up so much? Well, am just as curious as you are. Only thing is, am more curious about our universe, about the twinkle twinkle little stars (love that poem), the mind-blowing faraway galaxies, the nebulas, supernovas, and everything that is part of the wonderful cosmos. I absolutely love to wonder about what lies beyond our earth and the solar system. It's one of those romantic intergalactic journeys that I like to take from time to time in my mind.

This brings me to the subject of the James Webb Space Telescope (aka JWST). Yeah, the same one which has been beaming out some insanely breath-taking and amazing pictures of our universe over the last couple of days.

Those images have been circulating on all kinds of social media and messenger platforms — Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Reddit, Telegram, and even LinkedIn. It's the latest tsunami of pictures that has been doing the rounds for the last couple of days. If you have not seen or heard about it, you are probably living under a rock.

People all over the world are definitely awe-struck and using their thumbs to generate thousands of likes and emojis such as these 🤩😲👌😍.

But how many of us actually even understand what those images mean, what’s in those images, and why are they so amazingly beautiful? I admit, even I didn’t know most of the images when I saw them for the first time. But then my dear friend — curiosity, caught up with me. So, I started digging into those images to really understand what these cosmic images are all about.

And that’s what I am about to share with you earthlings —

First, a few facts to get you excited and curious (that’s important) about the JWST —

Note — Before we dive in further, some basic information about what a light-year is, as you will encounter this at a number of places in the article. I promise to keep it simple and avoid any and all technical jargon.

The distance of Earth from the Sun is 150 million km. At this distance, it takes around 8 minutes for the light from the sun to reach you.

So, hypothetically speaking if our Sun was 1 light year away, it would take roughly a year (350 days) for sunlight to reach us. I hope I got this calculation right. If not, pls call it out.

Keep this light-year concept in your mind while you read further. It will blow your mind off to tiny microscopic pieces.

Let’s explore our Universe through the eyes of JWST —

It is roughly 7600 light-years away and spans 300 light-years across. (Our Milky Way Galaxy is 120,000 light-years wide). It is a stellar nursery of stars and dust where new stars are forming and destroying their birth cloud. It is home to massive stars, several of which are much larger than our very own Sonny boy.

This landscape of ‘mountains’ and ‘valleys’ speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula.

Called the “Cosmic Cliffs”, this seemingly three-dimensional picture looks like jagged mountains on a moonlit evening. In reality, it is the edge of the giant, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, and the tallest ‘peaks’ in this image are about 7 light-years high (remember? 1 light year is equal to 9.6 trillion km)

This one image of the intricate swirls of dust, gas, and young stars is so absolutely jaw-dropping and stunning that, it even left the scientists presenting it at the NASA press conference at a loss for where to start.

Honestly, it does look like a very complex image with lots going on. And will probably also take astronomers many years of hard work to figure out exactly what’s going on here.

*Southern Ring Nebula.* *Image Credits: STScI/AURA/NASA/ESA*

The Southern Ring Nebula is an expanding cloud of gas surrounded by a dying star. It is around 2000 light-years away in our Milky Way Galaxy.

The small white dwarf, the star that caused all this commotion was a star about the size of our Sun. It ran out of fuel and threw off its outer layers of gas, creating these stunning rings.

Stephan’s Quintet is a group of 5 galaxies that is located an amazing 290 million light-years away. It was the first compact galaxy group ever discovered all the way back in 1877. Yeah somebody figured out this group of galaxies almost 150 years back. Genius.

If you look at the image closely, you can see the one in the upper left is a bit of the outsider in the group — it’s much closer to Earth than the other four, which actually are very close together. They are so close together that JWST can see shock waves from interactions between these galaxies as they tug at each other.

The red streaks and clumps towards the right side of the image, show the location of new star formation via the associated dust. Look also at the detail of the dust distribution and the tug-of-war taking place between the galaxies

What also stands out is the vast sea of distant galaxies in the background. Expect to see this in every JWST image, even when it points to sources within the Milky Way. That’s because infrared light passes through the dust. Webb’s infrared-detecting capabilities are so sensitive it will see right through objects within our galaxy.

This means you will get to see distant background galaxies in practically every JWST image. See if you can spot them in the Southern Ring and Carina images.

The above image is the biggest one JWST has taken yet and is a mosaic made with over 1,000 individual pictures taken by two instruments. (not getting into the names of those instruments, as it could get a little technical).

However, if you look at the same image with only one instrument of JWST, the image is equally spectacular —

*Stephan’s Quintet as seen by JWST’s MIRI.* Image Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

*Galaxy cluster SMACS 0723.* Image Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO

It is a massive galaxy cluster that contains thousands of galaxies clustered around a central super-bright galaxy squatting at the center. Don’t even try to imagine the distance. Your mind (and mine too) cannot fathom such distances. Just go with — It is very very very far away. And it took only 12.5 hours to create this for JWST.

This slice of the vast universe is approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

Think of it like a cosmic magnifying glass bringing faint far-away galaxies into focus. Just like your zoom lens on a DSLR. Only this is a cosmic zoom lens.

James Webb Space Telescope. Image Credits: NASA, , ESA, CSA, STScI

For the past three decades, the superstar of the skies has been Hubble, a NASA telescope launched in 1990 that has taken absolutely epic images of planets, stars, galaxies, nebulae, and so many other astronomical wonders.

Since it is based in low Earth orbit (570 km above our planet), Hubble could take detailed images of the cosmos without Earth’s atmosphere getting in the way, and the pictures that it took were astounding. In the past 32 years, it has made 1.5 million observations.

The ability for astronauts to visit the Hubble Space Telescope in low Earth orbit has kept it in action for a very long time. JWST will not have that advantage. Since it is situated nearly a million miles away, it’s too far away for the regular checkups that Hubble got.

For comparison, the Moon is 384,400km away. JWST is a million miles away. Yeah, a million miles away..!

The most exciting aspect of the JWST is that it will examine objects over 13.6 billion light-years away (remember one light year is equal to 9.6 trillion km).

I personally believe we are just getting started in this cosmic dance. Hubble Space Telescope was Version 1. JWST is Version 2 and still a new kid on the block in comparison to Hubble. It has been only been a couple of days since it started beaming these un-real literally out-of-the-world pictures.

JWST does have about 10 years worth of fuel on board, which means we can expect more of these breath-taking images coming our way.

I know I will.

In my publication Any Given Sunday, I mostly write stories about parenting, being a dad, motivation, fitness, and some off-beat controversial topics.

I am also very passionate about F1, and run a publication — Formula One Forever where writers from across the globe contribute to this publication

Some more thought-provoking stories from Any Given Sunday —

⭐ Say Hello! To The 4 Year Old Forrest Gump

⭐ If You Don’t Pick Up Your Kids Now, You’ll Surely Regret Later

⭐ How to Extract A Commitment From Your Teenager?

⭐ That Day When Dads Took Charge Of Their Kids For 1 Day

⭐ Your Kids Need To Sleep For Atleast 8 Hours. Otherwise, The Consequences Are Quite Severe

⭐ Teachers, Stop Asking Children To Click Pictures. Instead, Do This One Thing

⭐ If a 9 Year & 4 Year Old Can Climb 69 Floors, What’s Really Stopping You?

⭐ The Real Truth About The Discovery Of The Indus Valley Civilization

⭐ If I Miss A Rep, I Punish Myself. And The Results Are Amazing.

⭐ Top 15 Quotes from The Navy Seals That Will Motivate The Hell Out Of You Everyday.

⭐ 5 Simple Reasons You Are Not Motivated, And What You Need To Do About It.