it's just remarkable uh
the cluster itself is beautiful but but the the distant galaxies are interesting too.
i think the the most sought-after thing that we'll be we'll be looking at are observations of objects
that we hadn't expected so the unknown events and i've said this uh lots in the past but astronomy
is in discovery space and we know a lot about a lot of things but we there's a lot of things out
there that we don't know anything about and these new sorts of instruments like like james webb
give us new insights into astronomical objects that we already know but i think more importantly
and more exciting is that there will be new objects that we haven't even contemplated yet
so that's what i'm looking forward to well so the so this one for example the the planetary nebula
i think the the detail especially in the outer regions is you can obviously see the difference
and uh it's remarkable and so the resolution is much better and this is what we would have
expected from web because it's a much bigger it's a much bigger mirror and so that gives
us the higher resolution on the on the sky so that we have wonderful images like this but then
that higher resolution allows us to see better details and seeing better details allow us to
make better models and to understand the underlying physics here so yeah that's it's
remarkable and then here this is the exoplanet uh spectrum and so we've seen images from
web so far and this is the first example of its other capability and that is to show a spectrum
this is like the rainbow of light in that part of the electromagnetic spectrum that webb observes
in in the infrared and so that's neat to be able to see that but then this object is an exoplanet
and what we are seeing with that spectrum is the atmosphere of the exoplanet which i believe this
object is is a a jupiter-like planet so a gas a planet and we see the detection of water in
in the atmosphere this is atmospheric it doesn't mean that there's water on the surface and there
may not even be a surface of this planet but nonetheless this capability is spectacular
because that's the holy grail of exoplanet research is not only to find the exoplanets
but also to to understand what's going on chemically and and uh in this way we can
potentially determine whether there's life on the planet and then this is a great example
of a massive cluster that in and of itself is is very interesting right so we're seeing
this cluster in a new and better way because we have new and better capabilities with james webb
and so we see that and clusters are fantastic objects they're the largest uh gravitationally
bound things in the universe and so all of the the yellowish fuzzy objects or galaxies in that
cluster now two things that are interesting here is that we're using nature to help us observe more
distant objects in this case so that cluster of galaxies is very large massive it has a tremendous
amount of mass from the stars that we can see from the gas that's in the galaxies and outside of the
galaxies but within the cluster we can't see in this part of the electromagnetic spectrum but if
we observed in the x-rays we'd be able to see it because it's hot gas and then huge quantities of
dark matter all of that combined produce what we call a gravitational lens and gravitating masses
from einstein we know that gravitating masses bend light and they bend light in a way just
like an optical lens and so when we have an astronomical object like this galaxy cluster we
can use its gravitational lensing capabilities to observe more distant objects that are so far away
and so faint we wouldn't normally be able to see them with a gravitational lens they're magnified
just like an optical lens does and so we can see them so in this fantastic image all of the
streaks that appear to be segments of circles are more distant galaxies behind the cluster
further away from from us and from the cluster that are being gravitationally lensed by that
cluster and so in this way we're seeing those distant galaxies again in a way that we wouldn't
normally be able to see because they're too faint and with the fantastic capabilities of webb both
the sensitivity to faint light the resolution and then also the wavelength that it's observing in
these objects are very very distant and so we're able to study the very distant universe 13 billion
light years away or so and so this shows in one image it shows being able with james webb to see
our old favorites in a better way and then also to be able to see new objects in this case very very
distant galaxies from the very early universe and that's the magic of james webb i think
yep oh wow so this is uh this is another old favorite but seen in in new light
and again this is the first time i've seen this so but i'm expecting that the red pink
filamentary objects are star-forming regions we're observing it with web and so you know star-forming
regions are before the stars have formed they're they're cold gas and that cold gas is radiating in
infrared we're seeing tremendous detail of these star-forming regions and the galaxy on the lower
left is somewhat of a spiral galaxy modified in a way that that i'll come to in a second
but kind of like our milky way and we see those star-forming regions spread throughout the disk
galaxy or in fact two galaxies on the right are uh i think they're interacting with each other and
those two are further are furthermore interacting with the galaxy on the left and
there's some galaxies off to the top of the image as well and so those those interactions they're
sloshing back and forth through each other they're gravitationally orbiting each other and
and pulling off streamers of material that we see on the right there and those streamers of
material gas are being pulled off and flung into intergalactic space but that interaction is also
compressing the gas clouds and and spurring uh star formation which is why we see those glowing
knots of material the pinkish reddish material there so we're seeing both star formation that's
occurring within the galaxy but it's also almost certainly caused by the galactic interactions
and this is a common occurrence in the universe and certainly in the early universe where the
universe was smaller than it is today galaxy interactions are are very common and so observing
um objects like this that are that are closer to us where we can see the detail this allows
us to understand that process of galaxy collision and interaction how how does it occur how does it
affect the galaxies because there is some sort of effect after these collisions happen we might
have a different sort of galaxy afterwards and so you know what does that look like and then what's
happening with the star formation here you know i come back to this that each of these galaxies
almost certainly has a supermassive black hole in the middle and so those black holes after the
galaxies collide the collision may drive material onto the black hole and feed the black hole we say
but but also if these galaxies are destined to to collide and to merge into one then presumably the
three uh supermassive black holes that are in the three galaxies that we see here will merge and
and and combine into a larger black hole and so these are processes that are going on throughout
the universe certainly in the early days being able to observe them up close and and personally
uh gives us more insight and then i'm struck as with all the other images that we see the more
distant galaxies in the background and again almost every object that we see in this image
is a more distant galaxy so this is a universe filled with galaxies it's just it's just amazing
so yes their their final image here is this star-forming region nearby
star-forming region within our galaxy and why would we want to observe that because again you
know they're close we can get detail and we can understand star formation which is an important
important fundamental activity in astronomy and i think the most stunning thing here is just the
resolution and and the the detail that we see this is a big gas cloud that is forming lots and lots
of stars and so we see stars in the background and they're eroding that gas cloud along the top there
we see that nice sharp edge the thing that struck me most is again the exquisite detail that that's
visible here and how sharp that eroded edge is so the stars towards the top of that image and
i'm assuming this is not my area of of study but but based on what we're seeing here those stars
have turned on and you know now they're sending out photons high energy photons ultraviolet
photons and x-ray and that those high-energy photons are eroding the gas that has remained
the cocoon of gas that's remained after the stars have turned on and it's starting to erode
it away and that's i think why we have that nice sharp edge there it's just phenomenal and we see
uh cavities in the middle where stars have formed and they're blowing out holes within
that gas cloud and we see reflection from stars that we can't see directly along the top ridge for
example and in in the middle part of middle left there and and then just all the stars at the top
are probably stars from that from that cluster it's yeah it's just remarkable the detail that
we see here and so again this is a fundamental process all stars go through an environment like
this when they're born and and turn on and so understanding them better uh with a with
an instrument like the james webb is is what it's all about right and so it's it'll make tremendous
advances in all aspects of astronomy from stars and planets to the most distant universe