Xenophon Mousas: James Webb will be the best time machine for the next two decades

The first photo ever made public by the space telescope NASA’s James Webb it gave hope for the existence of other distant worlds that remain to be explored and created existential thoughts about who we are and what we do in this world. Its first presentation to the world was made with US President Joe Biden in attendance, which shows how important this first image from the new space telescope is.

One of the most famous astronomers of our country, the former professor of Space Physics of the Greek Academy of Sciences Xenophon Mousas explains to APE-MPE what the photos show scientists, arguing that we are on the threshold of a new world waiting to be explored.

A few days later, the new telescope also provided new photos depicting Jupiter and its satellites in close-up shots. In addition to Jupiter, James Webb captures some of its moons, Europa, Thebes and Metida, with impressive clarity, according to NASA scientists. Also very impressive, they said, is the fact that they can be seen in the new photos and Jupiter’s rings.

“Combined with the deep-field images released the other day, these images of Jupiter demonstrate what Webb can observe, from the faintest, most distant observable galaxies to planets in our own cosmic backyard that you can see with the naked eye from your real backyardsaid Brian Holler, a scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, who helped plan these observations.

The expectations that the new telescope has created are many.

“The first four or five first photos of the new space telescope and the first spectrum from the atmosphere of an exoplanet, i.e. a planet around another star are aesthetically very beautiful with harmony and contrast of colors that are due both to Nature and to the aesthetics of astronomers which convert infrared to visible for us to see. Each of the images are very impressive.

The first shows the most distant galaxies, estimated to be among the first to form after the Big Bang from which we accept the Universe was made.

The small galaxies we see in the background are the most distant that man has been able to record so far. At the same time, a relatively nearby cluster of galaxies is depicted with incredible clarity.

In this image, distant galaxies appear distorted because their images are bent by the gravitational lensing created by the nearby intervening galaxies. Light rays from distant galaxies are bent as they pass through the warped space-time around nearby galaxies.

Another striking image features the Stephano Quintet, five galaxies together who dance a cosmic dance, their tunics fluttering as they orbit their center of gravity and interact with each other by touching it with their gravity, scattering generously.

In the most impressive image, regions where almost an infinite number of stars are being born can be seen.

The first analysis of the light coming from an exoplanet clearly shows the presence of water vapor in its atmosphere“, Mr. Mousas emphasizes speaking to APE-MPE.

Before the James Webb the Hubble Space Telescope orthen the one with the most impressive results. Although some call James Webb a replacement for Hubble, NASA prefers the term successor. “After all, it is the scientific successor to Hubble. His scientific goals were motivated by Hubble’s results. Hubble science has pushed us to look at longer wavelengths to go beyond what Hubble has already done. In particular, more distant objects are more redshifted and their light is pushed from the UV and optical to the near-infrared. Thus, observations of these distant objects (such as the first galaxies to form in the Universe, for example) require an infrared telescopeo”, it says on its website.

“The James Webb Space Telescope is huge and collects more light so that we can see weaker and especially more distant objects, galaxies, quasars, exoplanets. James Webb’s surface is much larger and collects 6.25 times more light resulting in 100 times more light sensitivity. It is designed to see primarily in the infrared. Objects that have a low temperature are easier to image in the infrared, but also very distant objects, the most ancient stars and galaxies, whose light is shifted too far towards the red, in the infrared, so that they eventually become invisible to the human eye, because we do not we see in the infrared like mosquitoes”, Mr. Mousas explains to APE-MPE and points out in relation to the importance of the new telescope for humanity: “Science and the astrophysics that is part of it, is an integral as well as the most important component of civilization us. Modern civilization is based on science. Modern technology, medicine, robotics have their roots in the laws of physics with which the Antikythera Mechanism was designed. Your computer’s bits and bytes have their roots in Greek science. The same is true of James Webb’s perspective. The design of each of James Webb’s 18 hexagonal mirrors is based on a theoretical study by Archimedes who describes both the well-known palimpsest and Leonardo Da Vinci. The arrangement of the mirrors is a copy of the one used by Archimedes to burn the Roman fleet. The construction and use of the James Webb is of similarly colossal importance to science and humanity».

For many James Webb turned a page for humanity that will be understood in later time.

“James Webb will be the best time machine that will exist for the next two decades, because it will see farther and older objects and will allow us to get to know nature better on a large scale and ultimately ourselves. We may discover new laws of physics. Astronomy is the first science that was born as a science with mathematics in Greece, according to Pythagoras’ understanding that the language of nature is mathematics, i.e. the laws of physics. The study of nature led through astronomy initially to discover the first laws of nature, to create science, and through it today’s technology.

Plato, according to my own interpretation, says that we became human as we look at the sky, we admire it, we wonder, we wonder what all that we see is, and in our effort to understand what it is, we develop culture and become human. We expect this to continue with James Webb. Studying the world with James Webb will give us many surprises, solve many mysteries and create much more. We are indeed at the threshold of the old known as well as the unknown new World waiting to be discovered“, concludes Mr. Mousas.

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