>> Today marks one year since
the world first started seeing
spectaculr images of the cosmos
that were captured by the
powerful James Webb telescope.
But as science correspondent
miles o'brien tells us, getting
those images, including the
newest one released today of
dozens of stars being formed, is
only part of the important work
being done by the ten billion
dollar telescope.
>> For the James Webb space
telescope, the hits just keep
coming - one riveting image
after another from the far
reaches of the universe, to
planets right here in our own
solar system. We got our first
taste a year ago - and the
images did not disappoint. The
carina nebula. Stephan's
quintet. And - spectacularly -
this so-called deep field image,
showing thousands of galaxies
stretching into the distant
universe.
>> How much stunning science was
in there as well?
John Mather: Well, we're still
working out the details of what
all those mean.
>> That's nasa astrophysicist
John Mather. He's been a senior
scientist on Webb since its
inception back in the
mid-1990's.
John Mather: I think the people
are really interested in what
are the surprises that we're
getting out of the Webb. First,
they want to see the beautiful
pictures and be told what those
pictures are about. And then
they said, well, what's new?
What did you find out that we
didn't know before? And of
course, the big answers are the
first galaxies grew differently
than we expected and we don't
know why their predictions were
wrong.
>> Webb is shedding light on the
big answers because it is
uniquely capable of seeing them.
It operates in the infrared
wavelength. Invisible to human
eyes, this part of the spectrum
is the only way to see the most
distant objects in space that
are moving away from us as the
universe expands. Before Webb
launched, astronomers used near
infrared instruments aboard the
Hubble space telescope to see
galaxies that date to about half
billion years after the big
bang. But Webb can see a few
hundred million years further
back in time. Astronomers hoped
they might catch glimpses of the
universe before stars and
galaxies formed.
Marc postman: And yet we see
galaxies already exist at that
time.
>> Marc postman is interim
deputy director at the space
telescope science institute in
Baltimore.
Marc postman: It doesn't refute
big bang cosmology or say we
have to start from scratch. But
what it does say is we do have
to learn new ways of getting
stars and galaxies to assemble
very quickly after the big bang
within within a couple of
hundred million years.
>> But the most interesting
findings for astronomers don't
come from the eye-candy the rest
of us gobble up. Case in point -
Uranus.
Heidi Hammel: I have to say the
word "Spectroscopy," because
that's what these science
observations were all about. We
have some images and they're
fine, but the spectroscopy blew
us away.
>> Heidi Hammel is a scientist
on the Webb team who focuses on
solar system observations.
Webb's science instruments
generate "Spectroscopy" data
that astronomers use to study
the chemical composition of
objects in space. If we were to
train one on Earth, we would
detect the different compounds
found here on this planet. For
astronomers, a spectrograph is
worth a thousand pictures.
Heidi Hammel: We are
seeingevidence of chemistry that
we had hypothesized. They're
like laboratory textbook
examples of chemistry of ethane
and methane and acetylene and
all this interesting dynamical
stuff in the atmosphere of
Uranus. And that is very
interesting because that's new
chemistry that we hadn't thought
about.
>> Still, Heidi Hammel will
confess to being wowed by a
great image.
Miles o'brien: This is not
processed at all. Judy Schmidt:
And then you I believe this has
how many? Miles o'brien: How
many filters? Three. And is it
always three? Judy Schmidt: This
is only this picture. I only had
two
>> In Modesto, California I sat
down with someone who helps make
the visual magic happen. Judy
Schmidt describes herself as a
celestial artist.
Miles o'brien: How many, how
many images would you say you
have processed over the years?
Judy Schmidt: Oh, god. Give or
take hundreds. Hundreds.
>> She's a stay-at-home mom with
a background in graphic design.
15 over the years, she's made a
color-correcting astronomy
images in her home office -
posting her work on flickr and
Twitter.
Miles o'brien: Well, you're
trying to let us see something
we can't see, right? That's
hard.
Judy Schmidt: Yes, but there's a
natural order of wavelengths. So
even though. It's infrared. I'm
still using the same, I guess,
formula to put together an image
where the shortest wavelengths
will be represented by blue, and
then the medium wavelengths get
represented by green, and then
the longest been in the red.
>> Among her most celebrated
work:hubble images of the comet
shoemaker-levy 9 impacting
Jupiter in 1994. So when Webb
scientists pulled down fresh
images of Jupiter, Heidi Hammel
gave schimdt a crack at those
too.
Judy Schmidt: I just thought it
was very fun and something to do
with my life. And if I can make
some astronomers day by showing
interest in their work and
making a pretty image out of it,
then I thought that was awesome
too.
Miles o'brien: So you're like
you're like the Dean of the
citizen science image processors
at this point. And do you do you
imagine quitting? Are you going
to keep going?
Judy Schmidt: I don't feel like
it will ever end as long as
there's space telescopes in the
sky.
>> But there's little concern
space telescopes will fade away.
And this is a special place if
you care about astronomy and
space telescopes. Right?
Julie Mcenery: This is where
some of the most important
observatories of our time have
been put together, assembled,
M go into
space.
>> I caught a glimpse of nasa's
next flagship observatory under
assembly at the Goddard space
flight center in greenbelt,
Maryland. Julie Mcenery is the
senior project scientist on the
Nancy grace Roman space
telescope.
Julie Mcenery: So if you were to
compare us to Webb. Webb will
look at a small region of the
sky with exquisite sensitivity
and sharpness, and it can tell
you what's happening, you know,
right at the beginning, right at
the earliest times in our
universe. What Roman will do
will tell you what happened
between then and now.
>> The team hopes to launch by
2026. There is no doubt they
have a tough act to follow.