Webb Sequence: Discovering the First Galaxies

Episode description: 

With the James Webb Space Telescope, we’re seeing the early universe like by no means earlier than. Webb produces stunning pictures and detailed scientific information that depart astronomers in awe. In this episode, Mic Bagley, a NASA scientist on the Webb workforce, guides us by new discoveries made potential by Webb. Mic tells the story of a exceptional galaxy found within the early days of Webb’s science mission and explains why Webb is educating us “everything” about how galaxies kind and evolve. 

[Music: Curiosity by SYSTEM Sounds]  

JACOB PINTER: You’re listening to NASA’s Curious Universe. I’m your host, Jacob Pinter.  

The James Webb Space Telescope is giving us revolutionary new details about the universe. From the earliest galaxies we now have ever been capable of detect to the beginning and evolution of stars and even to planets in our personal yard. In this episode and the following a number of episodes of Curious Universe, we’re diving into a few of these new discoveries. Today, we’re trying again to child photos of the universe.   

To start this story, let’s take a really brief journey in our time machine. Now we now have put some miles on the ol’ Curious Universe time machine. We’ve taken it again billions of years, all the way in which to the Big Bang and the start of every little thing. Well, not this time. We’re heading again simply three brief years.  

MICHELLE THALLER (from NASA’s “First Images From the James Webb Space Telescope” broadcast): This is the day we get the primary pictures again from the James Webb Space Telescope, and you’ve got a front-row seat to the cosmos. 

JACOB: It’s July 2022. After 25 years of improvement, building, testing—and eventually, launch—the James Webb Space Telescope is gazing out on the universe, and NASA scientists are revealing its pictures for the very first time.  

[Music: Meditate by Liam Joseph Hennessey] 

JANE RIGBY: And so now we’re gonna—let’s do it.  

THALLER: We’ve received the entire world watching. Are you able to put the primary picture up? 

RIGBY: Oh let’s do it. Let’s do it.  

THALLER: Right. Here we go. 

RIGBY: Ah! So if we come up and have a look at this picture—to begin with, it’s actually attractive, and it’s teeming with galaxies.  

JACOB: Just one image can include a lot. Sure, it’s stunning. You don’t want a educated eye to see that. But what’s actually happening right here? Each picture focuses on one small sliver of the sky, and Webb reveals us the main points which might be hiding, ready to be found—however provided that we now have the correct instruments to see them.   

AMBER STRAUGHN: Honestly it took me some time to even determine what to name out on this picture. There is simply a lot happening right here. It’s so stunning. One factor that actually stands out to me is you form of get this sense of depth… (fades out)  

JACOB: Now, I wish to peel again the curtain somewhat bit. Because simply attending to the purpose the place we are able to see these pictures is its personal mountain to climb. The James Webb Space Telescope is a telescope, clearly. But as a result of it’s extra sophisticated than the form of telescope you can arrange in your yard—and likewise it’s in house, million miles from Earth—it takes much more work to make sense of what Webb is seeing. In reality, the uncooked information coming into the Webb telescope doesn’t look something like these fairly photos.   

MIC BAGLEY: It actually seems like a TV display that’s received the static. There’s not—visually, there’s nothing there.   

[Music: Talking Tech by Jay Price] 

So it seems such as you’re simply seeing noise.  

JACOB: Mic Bagley is a NASA scientist with a fairly intimidating job title. 

MIC: I’m the JWST undertaking scientist for information, pipeline, calibration, and archives, and I can’t consider I haven’t give you a shorter title for that title but.  

JACOB: To present us the universe, Webb has to gather gentle. When we see pictures of distant galaxies, meaning gentle particles from these galaxies traveled for billions of years all the way in which throughout the universe and ultimately smacked into Webb’s mirrors. So not solely are we trying far away from Earth, we’re trying again in time to the early lifetime of the universe. It’s as much as a workforce of scientists, together with Mic, to ensure all of that gentle turns into data the world can use.

MIC: The telescope is primarily getting information in ones and zeros. And so the computer systems on board are measuring—you understand, the detectors are digital, and also you’re taking a look at when a photon hits the detector, it kicks off an electron, and we’re form of counting electrons.  

JACOB: Wow.  

MIC: So we’re not really counting gentle. We’re counting the impact, the oblique impact, of sunshine on the metallic detectors. This is like Einstein’s— 

JACOB: Wow!  

MIC: —Nobel Prize, the photoelectric impact. I’m form of glossing over so many, you understand particulars. 

JACOB: And I admire that. 

MIC: But that’s what will get despatched down.   

JACOB: Once Mic has this data, it goes by a course of referred to as cleansing. The Webb telescope is tremendous delicate to warmth, but its onboard electronics produce warmth, which may present up within the information. So they need to subtract the warmth. The telescope’s computer systems vibrate somewhat bit, so you need to account for that. Sometimes astronomers discover surprising artifacts—these little undesirable indicators that get in the way in which of what the telescope is definitely in search of.  

MIC: Light from a shiny star approach, approach off within the distance—is getting scattered into your picture and creating all of those enjoyable patterns. And we’ve received nice names for this stuff. There’s dragon’s breath, claws, wisps, snowballs. We’ve received nice names for all of this stuff that may occur when gentle or cosmic rays hit the detector and create these artifacts, however all of these get in the way in which of the science you wish to do, so you need to discover some method to subtract all of them out. 

JACOB: After extra processing, you find yourself with a picture. When you see a lovely image from Webb, you may really be taking a look at a mosaic of a whole bunch of particular person pictures, stitched collectively. But Webb additionally collects spectra of the objects it research, and Webb’s spectra are what scientists get actually enthusiastic about. These measurements unfold out the completely different wavelengths of sunshine like a rainbow. With that data, we are able to be taught a ton about planets, stars, and galaxies, like what they’re made from and the way scorching they’re.   

[Music: Emerging Fragments by Jay Price] 

In different episodes of this collection, we’re going to listen to what Webb is educating us about how stars kind and in regards to the planets in our photo voltaic system and exoplanets orbiting faraway stars.   

Today, we’re beginning with Mic’s specialty: distant galaxies. Mic was a part of a science workforce referred to as CEERS. That’s an acronym, and it stands for Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey. That workforce was one of many first to work with information from Webb as soon as it grew to become public. In the early days of Webb’s science marketing campaign, Mic helped detect one of the distant galaxies ever noticed. The CEERS workforce named that galaxy Maisie’s Galaxy. In a couple of minutes, Mic will clarify how they discovered it and why they named it after an actual individual.  

One different cool factor about Mic: they’re additionally planning for the longer term. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is scheduled to launch no later than 2027, and Mic is without doubt one of the scientists serving to to arrange, even earlier than Roman leaves Earth. 

We’ll get to all that. But first, I requested Mic to start out originally.  

(to Mic) What are you looking for out in regards to the universe? 

MIC: So I’m actually within the very early universe. So you have got the Big Bang, after which a pair hundred million years occur, after which I wish to know what occurs then. How do you get the primary galaxies that kind? Where did the primary stars kind, and the way? How did the primary galaxies flip into, you understand, develop and switch into the Milky Way as we speak? There’s plenty of data that we don’t perceive, and I discover it actually thrilling to be taking a look at—form of to be pushing the boundaries of what we are able to observe, going as far again in time as we are able to probably see. We’re actually pushing—JWST is so highly effective, however we’re actually at this level, speaking about pushing it to its limits to determine what occurred first within the universe.  

JACOB: Wow.  

MIC: So taking a look at, generally I name them child galaxies, since you’re taking a look at them once they’re actually younger and actually tiny, and, you understand, that’s not one thing we are able to see round us within the universe as we speak. We actually need to go very, very far again in time to see what’s happening.  

JACOB: I ponder should you can fill within the clean for me on this sentence: The James Webb Space Telescope is educating us _____ about galaxies.  

MIC: Everything! (Laughs) No, that’s in all probability not honest. I imply, it’s educating us how galaxies kind and evolve, as a result of it’s opened up a brand new wavelength vary for us to review. And it’s opened up—it’s given us sharper pictures and deeper exposures and extra photons, and so the quantity of knowledge that we now have now to review what’s going on within the gasoline and the celebrities and the mud and the entire components which might be being fashioned and the entire the winds which might be blowing off the celebrities—it’s all new. It’s issues that we form of anticipated we’d see, and a few of it we undoubtedly noticed with Hubble. Hubble was actually highly effective, however JWST is simply pushing every little thing to additional distances, extra particulars, smaller scales. It’s giving us a lot extra data at virtually each scale and each time interval of galaxy evolution. So it’s actually exhausting to reply that query with, like, a single, you understand. “This is what it’s telling us.” 

JACOB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It appears like that’s the reply. It’s educating us every little thing. And so, how did you your self begin working with the James Webb Space Telescope? Like, did you search this out? Like, it is a instrument that I want, how can I become involved? What was that like? 

MIC: I’d been fascinated by JWST since, I don’t know. I do know there have been people who’ve been engaged on this for many years. I feel I form of grew to become conscious of it round 2012, 2013 in grad faculty. And— 

JACOB: So that’s a stable eight, 9 years earlier than it launched, proper?

MIC: Yeah, proper. And so it was—the analysis that I used to be doing in graduate faculty was all, right here’s what we are able to do finding out early galaxies with Hubble. And, you understand, you had that complete chapter, and right here is every little thing we’ll be capable to do with this telescope that doesn’t exist but. And in order that was actually thrilling. And on the time, I used to be doing plenty of, like, fascinated by what may we do if it exists—if it launches, when it launches? 

JACOB: How do you think about and even simulate what the telescope goes to seek out if it’s received these capabilities that we’ve by no means had earlier than, and it’s going to point out us issues we’ve by no means seen? 

MIC: Well, so we had, like, form of the design specs. And “we” is a big group of individuals, proper? So the Space Telescope Science Institute had supplied form of sensitivity estimates and expectations for a way the detectors would work. And plenty of this may get examined in labs earlier than the—you understand, earlier than issues had been really constructed and documented. And then, so you’ll be able to take form of an estimate of, This is how delicate the detectors are going to be; that is what shade gentle the filters will probably be delicate to; that is how effectively the detectors will flip photons into information. And you form of take all of these items collectively, and you’ll simulate—taking each single piece of that, you’ll be able to simulate what a picture will appear like. And then you definitely make up a universe, mainly, as a result of we didn’t have any pictures that existed that had been deep sufficient to point out what JWST would see.  

JACOB: Yeah.   

MIC: So we’d create a universe from principle, from simulations, utilizing simply darkish matter halos. And you form of sew—I’m not a theorist, so this isn’t my world. 

JACOB: You create a universe in a supercomputer or one thing? 

MIC: In a field, yeah. Yeah. A supercomputer in a—you’ve received, like—masking a really small space, however going into depth about, yeah, it’s in a supercomputer. And you pull out from that universe, OK, if I had been to have a look at this patch of sky, what would I see? So now you have got a picture with no noise, no something. You’ve received this excellent, pristine picture of this pretend universe that covers—you understand, it has properties which might be outlined by physics. If you pressed “go” on the universe, you’d get galaxies that had been form of clustered this fashion.  

JACOB: From what we all know—from what we expect we find out about …  

MIC: From what we expect we all know, that is how the gasoline would work together from gravity, and that is how—and then you definitely take that excellent, supreme picture. And you form of observe it with JWST, with every little thing you understand about the way you anticipate it to work. And then you definitely create pictures and spectroscopy from that information and go from there. And, I imply, you don’t know. There had been plenty of issues that we see in the actual information that we didn’t anticipate, plenty of artifacts and options that had been new. When the telescope launched they usually opened—you understand, they began taking pictures, there have been plenty of issues that had been like, Oh, I wasn’t anticipating to see that. We received to determine learn how to take care of that. And on the identical time, the pictures that really got here out of the telescope are much more delicate than what we simulated. Like, the pictures are even higher than we thought they’d be. The information is even cleaner. It goes even deeper. 

JACOB: Most of us noticed these pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope for the primary time in the summertime of 2022. When did you really begin seeing information, pictures, no matter? And what do you keep in mind from that?  

MIC: Yeah. Same time. I used to be, like, glued to my pc display on July 12 or no matter, to see the one which had all of the excessive redshift galaxies in it. I imply, I used to be—I cried. I used to be so excited to see the entire element and all—I imply, it was so crystal clear and deep and colourful. It was so thrilling to see that. The telescope had noticed the information for our program, for CEERS, earlier than, again in June, but it surely was all below an embargo till they launched the primary pictures. So we put ourselves in a room with no home windows in order that we wouldn’t be distracted. We arrange a wall of espresso and snacks and no matter. 

JACOB: Important stuff. 

MIC: Important stuff. And we actually did—like, 10 or 12 of us locked ourselves in a room for every week and downloaded the information and, you understand, tried to see and simply—and actually spent more often than not staring on the display. Look at that! Did you see this?! Look at that! And that’s all we did for the primary complete day. And then we needed to remind ourselves, your job is to scrub the information and provides it to the workforce and begin doing science. But it was so, so thrilling, and there was a lot there that we simply by no means anticipated to see.   

[Music: The Process by Carl David Harms] 

JACOB: So let’s speak about what Webb noticed. Before Webb, the Hubble Space Telescope managed to look again greater than 13 billion years throughout time and house to about 500 million years after the Big Bang. If 500 million years nonetheless appears like a very long time, properly, that’s lower than one twenty-fifth of the universe’s life to this point. So these are early days, within the grand scheme of issues.  

Based on what they noticed from Hubble and different sources, plenty of astronomers thought that within the first few hundred million years of the universe there wouldn’t be many galaxies to seek out. But Webb can look even farther. And in these first days, locked in a room with a pile of snacks, Mic was one of many astronomers who began rewriting what we all know in regards to the universe.  

MIC: And what we discovered was that there’s tons. Tons and tons extra galaxies forming earlier, forming sooner, forming extra effectively. And in order that week, we had been trying to discover these new galaxies, these far-off galaxies. And each single time we decreased the information and, you understand, iterated on a brand new course of, there was this one candidate that stored displaying up as—like, we couldn’t do away with it. At this level, you’re doing every little thing you’ll be able to to disprove that it is a actual factor. But we couldn’t do away with it. No matter what we did, it was at all times in our samples, and we began to actually consider it. And so we—its existence was so exhausting to clarify with any principle that we had main as much as that time, as a result of it was at an earlier time and so shiny that it will have needed to have fashioned even earlier to get that huge and shiny by the point we had been observing it. And it was so thrilling to seek out it that the [principal investigator] of our program ended up naming it after his daughter. So it’s referred to as— 

JACOB: This is Maisie’s Galaxy?  

MIC: Maisie’s Galaxy, yep. We found it on his—on our P.I., Steve Finkelstein’s, birthday. And then we stored attempting to, you understand, do away with—disprove it. It can’t be actual, it will probably’t be actual, it will probably’t be actual. And then we lastly determined it was actual, like we believed it on her birthday, on Maisie’s birthday. And so we wrote this paper. We had not deliberate to write down a paper rapidly, however we began penning this paper saying, I feel that is actual—you understand, let’s, let’s share it. And then we had been on a telecon. It was like, 10 o’clock at evening. I don’t keep in mind who urged it, but it surely was like, “Why don’t we just call it Maisie’s Galaxy? The editor of the journal can yell at us later.” And it caught.  

JACOB: I actually—I copied down an actual footnote within the paper that claims, you understand, we believed on this supply on the ninth birthday of the lead creator’s daughter. So we’re naming it after her. It’s excellent!  

MIC: Right? And, you understand, a part of that was the ten o’clock at evening after we’ve been locked ourselves in a room for every week. And the opposite a part of it was like, I dare you to problem us. We named it after any person’s daughter. 

JACOB: But the title caught, proper?  

MIC: The title caught, Maisie’s Galaxy. With a picture, you’ll be able to actually simply have a guess at how far-off a galaxy is, and it was spectroscopically confirmed. Like, it’s actual. It’s actually far-off, and it stays one of many first—there are actually a number of different outcomes displaying galaxies which might be brighter and at additional distances—but it surely’s one of many first actual challenges to our understanding of how one can kind galaxies. How do you get Maisie’s Galaxy that early within the universe? It implies that the star formation needed to have began earlier. It needed to have been extra environment friendly. The universe needed to be a lot better at collapsing gasoline into stars than we thought earlier than JWST, which is actually thrilling. Because I feel the good, or the perfect, like, homage, I assume, to a telescope, is that you need to redefine what you understand. The observations you get from it imply you need to redefine what you understand about physics. And that’s actually cool. 

JACOB: So now that we’ve received just a few years’ price of Webb telescope observations that, such as you mentioned, is making us rethink what we all know in regards to the early universe, what do you assume are the following inquiries to ask and the following issues to review?  

MIC: Yeah. What I would like is—like, shameless plug, I would like us to go earlier. I would like us to go deeper. So I’m actually excited by deep discipline astronomy, as a result of I don’t assume we are able to reply—we now have pushed JWST form of to—to not the boundaries of what it will probably do, however to the boundaries of what it will probably do in, like, a semi-reasonable period of time. Usually with JWST, you’re taking, like, an hour publicity, perhaps a pair hours. But should you took one level of the sky and also you stared at it for tens and tens and tens of hours with JWST, you’ll get much more element. There are groups which have began doing this. We’ve received some deep observations. But if we may actually go even deeper, it will be a very huge funding in telescope time, however it will inform us about what’s happening within the stars, within the gasoline 200 million years after the Big Bang. I imply, this may be extraordinary. That’s what I hope we do. And I imply, we’ve received some years, so I actually hope that that occurs.  

JACOB: The risk is there. 

MIC: Yeah! 

JACOB: It’s simply, I do know that there are such a lot of scientists all jockeying for a really restricted period of time. But, like, we may.  

MIC: We may, and I do assume sooner or later we’ll. It’s in all probability not all going to occur on the identical time. It’s in all probability like, OK, this yr we’ll dedicate somewhat little bit of time, and subsequent yr we’ll dedicate somewhat extra, and also you slowly construct up this. I would really like all of it to occur this yr—  

JACOB: Tomorrow!  

MIC: Right. I do assume we’ll get there. I simply need it to occur now.  

JACOB: Yeah.  

[Music: Take Flight by Tim Laws] 

Why do you assume it’s vital to review these distant components of the universe? I imply, while you speak about, like, a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, I imply that’s, like, actually as far-off from Earth and us as you may get. Why do you assume that’s vital?  

MIC: This is a exhausting query that I get requested on a regular basis, and I nonetheless am not completely certain of my reply. I form of assume twofold. One, there’s—or perhaps three, I don’t know. We’re at all times as a society asking ourselves the query of, like, the place did we come from? And so the seek for life on different planets is extremely enticing, and JWST is a big a part of that. So I see finding out the early universe, and, like, the primary galaxies as part of that story, an earlier half. We’re taking a look at, just like the Milky Way’s child photos. I imply, our—you search for within the sky within the desert away from metropolis lights, and also you see this attractive galaxy that’s, you understand, streaking throughout the sky. And should you may have a look at it from above, it’s a grand design spiral. It has all of those spiral arms and stars and gasoline and extremely advanced system and— 

JACOB: And it’s stunning.  

MIC: And it’s stunning. And taking a look at how we received from, like, just a few clusters of stars to this extremely advanced, stunning galaxy is a part of the story of the place we come from. It’s an element that’s actually exhausting to narrate to as a result of it’s to this point eliminated. But I see it as a part of—I imply, should you go down somewhat little bit of a religious realm, it’s a part of simply, like, the larger image of the universe and our place in it. And so the second piece, I’d say, is, finding out this early within the universe provides you—I feel it provides you some perspective on what feels huge and what feels small. And proper now, plenty of issues really feel actually huge right here on Earth. So I discover it actually calming to learn tales or have a look at pictures of the early universe and form of see, like, OK, there’s the universe is approach greater than this. It doesn’t assist clear up any of our issues. Doesn’t make something higher, but it surely’s like a method to reground, virtually, for a minute. And I additionally assume that speaking about form of the start of the universe is actually thrilling and galvanizing in a approach that may hopefully hold encouraging future generations of scientists to pursue science. And so I see that being a price, I hope.  

JACOB: Yeah. What do you think about the following 5 to 10 years may appear like, partly when it comes to what we’ll be taught, and I assume additionally when it comes to, like, what it’d really feel like to make use of these new instruments?  

MIC: Yeah. So I’m actually—I’m enthusiastic about each these questions, or each components of that query. I feel that first about what we’ll be taught, identical form of deal. I’m most excited by the issues we don’t know that we’ll be taught but, just like the actually— the unknown unknowns, the questions we didn’t even know to ask. Because there have been so many with Webb that I anticipate there will probably be so many with every new observatory that comes on-line. For instance, JWST just isn’t designed for surveys. It’s actually designed as a deal with a small space and actually do a deep dive right into a focused follow-up to see what’s happening on this one tiny pencil beam of sky. The Nancy Grace Roman telescope, in a single publicity, goes to cowl, you understand, like, 100 instances the scale of the JWST discipline of view. And in order that telescope goes to provide us a completely completely different set of knowledge on like what’s happening on giant scale. So JWST is trying actually deep and small, and Roman goes barely much less deep however vastly extensive. So I’m enthusiastic about that. 

JACOB: A lot of individuals are accustomed to the James Webb Space Telescope. Lots of people have seen the beautiful photos. What would you like people who find themselves not following this telescope tremendous intently—what would you like folks to know in regards to the science that’s popping out of the James Webb Space Telescope? 

MIC: Yeah. I feel principally that the science is totally transformational. In each subject that it research, it has utterly modified virtually every little thing we find out about something we’re finding out. It’s modified every little thing we find out about galaxies. To my understanding it’s modified plenty of what we all know or thought we knew about exoplanets. It’s modified what we find out about Jupiter. So I feel that it’s—the pictures are actually fairly, however the window that it has opened up on what we are able to research—it’s challenged every little thing we find out about how the universe works, and has made us need to, like, give you new methods to clarify what the telescope is seeing.  

[Music: Dots and Dashes by Jan Telegra] 

So the photographs are actually fairly, however there’s a lot that you may be taught from them that challenges what we all know in regards to the universe. 

JACOB: Cool. 

MIC: It’s enjoyable. (laughs) 

JACOB: Mic, thanks a lot. This has been a lot enjoyable.  

Mic Bagley: I’ve had a good time.  

JACOB: Mic Bagley is the James Webb Space Telescope Project Scientist for Data, Pipeline, Calibrations and Archives. 

If you preferred this episode, you’ll love NASA’s documentary Cosmic Dawn. Cosmic Dawn reveals the unbelievable true story of the James Webb Space Telescope, with never-before-seen footage from the creation, building, and launch of this exceptional telescope. See the movie at nasa.gov/cosmicdawn. And you could find the newest information from the Webb telescope and way more data at nasa.gov/webb.  

This is NASA’s Curious Universe. This episode was written and produced by me, Jacob Pinter. Our govt producer is Katie Konans. The Curious Universe workforce additionally contains Christian Elliot and naturally, Padi Boyd. Krystofer Kim designed our present artwork.  

Our theme tune was composed by Matt Russo and Andrew Santaguida of SYSTEM Sounds. Our intern is Emma Brambila. Special because of Laura Betz, Amber Straughn, and Liz Landau. 

As at all times, should you loved this episode of NASA’s Curious Universe, please tell us. Leave us a evaluate. Share the present with a buddy. And keep in mind, you’ll be able to “follow” NASA’s Curious Universe in your favourite podcast app to get a notification every time we put up a brand new episode.