NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope: Looking at the origin of the universe

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James Webb Space Telescope 5
Photo credit: NASA / Desiree Stover

I’ve been a space nerd since I was about seven, when my mum brought me to the planetarium in Stockholm. Mouth open, I looked up into this dome representing the night sky. I was immediately and totally captivated by all things space. I learnt among many other things that the speed of light is 300,000 km/second. The distance light travels in a year is the standard measure of distance in our universe. (For reference, our sun’s light takes 8.3 minutes to reach us!) Many of those distant stars are so many light years away that we perceive their light long after they exist. It’s something about space: it’s infinite immensity, it’s beauty, the countless unknowns, the big bang and, of course, the enthralling statistical certainty that, out there somewhere, other life forms are going about their business. Space remains the brimming fuel tank of my turbo-charged imagination. And this imagination morphed into excitement of unlimited scientific discovery when last year I found myself browsing through freely accessible of images from NASA’s Hubble telescope that has been orbiting our planet since 1990. Just take a look!

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Image: Hubble Space Telescope. The “Pillars of Creation” is the name given to trunks of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula, in the Serpens constellation, some 6,500–7,000 light-years from Earth. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

So how much of the night sky is captured by an image like this? It’s something like making a tiny hole in a piece of paper, holding this paper up at arm’s length and capturing a very high resolution image of whatever light comes through the hole.

Hubble’s images of our universe are truly extraordinary. This has to be the most awe-inspiring beautiful stuff ever. Is it “art”? If so, who is the artist? The NASA photographer? Nature? A great creator? (Eek!) Here’s a Hubble image of the Carina Nebula.

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Image: Hubble Space Telescope. Billowing cloud of cold interstellar gas and dust rising from a tempestuous stellar nursery located in the Carina Nebula, 7,500 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

In 2003, NASA decided that they needed even better and deeper images of the universe. (Well they would, wouldn’t they!) To do this they set out to use a massive high resolution infrared camera. In December 2021, they launched the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope and have recently published some of the first images. Included is a very different view of the Carina Nebula.

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Image: Webb Space Telescope. Webb’s infrared vision is able to cut through the curtain of dust, revealing many more stars in the Carina Nebula. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

The improved resolution of the Webb images is astounding and potentially bears enormous scientific fruit. For example, NASA scientists can identify even more stars that, however briefly, dim as a planet passes between the star in question and Webb’s camera. This multiplies many times over the number of planets that we know about that could potentially harbour life.

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Image: Webb Space telescope: This is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the early universe ever taken. Webb was able to capture this image in less than one day, while similar deep field images from Hubble take many weeks. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

The real big trophy that Webb holds high takes the form of images made by light from stars 13 billion light years away. It is believed that these stars are the oldest in existence (if indeed they still exist!) and represent the immediate aftermath of the big bang. In other words, this image is created by light transmitted from the earliest universe and has been travelling from those stars for 13,000,000,000 years before being captured by the Webb telescope. Gosh! Images of the big bang! It’s time to grab a coffee with my buddy, Dan-Who-Knows-Stuff.

Dan-Who-Knows-Stuff once told me that there is mathematical proof that a parallel universe exists; an exact copy of us, our world and what we are doing. (Struggling!) He understands dark matter. (I don’t!) I ask him to give me a five minute tutorial on the big bang. This gets a huge smile. The story goes something like this. All matter in the universe was once contained in one lump. Nobody knows its dimensions. Possibly football size; possibly planet size. It was so dense that no light could be emitted from it. Then, for some reason, 13 billion years ago, it literally exploded and the fragments of that explosion accelerated rapidly away for a few thousand years to form our universe which, by the way, is still expanding but much more slowly. Many of the fragments are stars the matter of which can now transmit light. We know all this because light can be “dated;” it changes subtly the longer it has been travelling. We can also tell whether light is coming from a source that is moving towards us or away from us (the Doppler effect.) This is how we know that those stars, 13 billion light years away and seen for the first time by Webb represent the origin of our universe.

“Thanks, Dan-Who-Knows-Stuff!” I say. “But I have a question. If all the matter in the universe was contained in one lump, what was outside the lump?”

“I don’t know! That’s one of the two most fundamental and unanswered questions about the universe.” Says Dan-Who-Knows-Stuff.

“What’s the other question?” I ask.

Dan-Who-Knows-Stuff smiles. “What is time?” he says.

Sidestepping in Nantes

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Sidestepping in Nantes 1

I’m travelling in north-west France and find myself in Nantes. The town straddles the Loire river. I’ve heard it’s a cool gig. Good food. Calm. I stroll around and find myself in the Place du Bouffay. A bronze figure on – well, not entirely on – a plinth catches my eye. A dude in a suit and tie is defying gravity. One foot is dangling mid-air. How the work disturbs me visually is offset by how it amuses me. It is simple but wholly different.

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The Place du Bouffay is mid-morning quiet. Rich odours of French cuisine waft out from restaurants preparing for the lunchtime rush. I run my hand over the lace-up shoe of the dangling foot. It is smooth and comforting. Despite the building heat, the bronze is cool to touch.

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This clearly runs against the grain of how famous people and their achievements are depicted and commemorated in public places. Who is he? An unconventional mayor from yester-year? A really rich and wacky philanthropist? And most importantly, what is the who and why of portraying him in this way?

Some research. Turns out that I got it all wrong. It is not about the dude and what he did for Nantes. It is about an attitude. The dude is the sculptor himself, Philippe Ramette, who is best known for surreal, gravity defying photos including himself in a black suit. Ramette’s unconventional attitude is captured by this, his “Éloge du pas de côté” (“Eulogy to Sidestepping”) and is embraced by a town that is audacious and makes manifest a strong commitment to culture. This is Big Public Sculpture at its enthralling best. Bravo, Nantes!

Rusty McCrushem’s Car Mash

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This is a guest post by Boffy Burgoon, Art Correspondent for the Bulletin of Particle Physics.

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I’m on the road to Durness, Northern Scotland. Single-lane with passing places. It winds its way through some of the most majestic landscapes that Great Britain has to offer. The many motoring enthusiasts, caravanners, campervanners, hikers, bikers and cyclists who toil their way along this part of the North Coast 500 are rewarded with magnificent views of long-ago-glacier-smoothed hills, hanging valleys, gushing peat-stained rivers, lochs of an unfathomable gun-metal hue, red deer and even eagles. This is country that fills my soul.

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If you decide to brave the euro-touro logjam of the NC500 you may wish for a distraction albeit a distraction that is altogether startling in such an environment. Turn off the Durness Road (the A 838) at Rhichonich onto the B 801 towards Kinlochbervie. After about three kilometres, you will be confronted by Rusty McCrushem’s latest car mash installation. It is his most challenging to date. Unlike his earlier piles of rusted and discarded automobiles scattered over Scotland, this has a brilliantly thought through temporal element and takes car mashing to new heights.  

At first pass, I see only cars that are more or less in tact. Rusty teases us with the odd patch of rust, flaking paint, delicately shattered windscreens, a dented door here and a missing wheel there. These once shining objects of commerce and pride are of no further vehicular use; they are now abandoned. However, they seem somehow at ease in their weed-ridden, road-side rest home for cars. Rusty broadcasts a message for the as yet unimpressed viewer: “Och, you’ve nae seen anything yet!”

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And then I notice the forces of destruction that Rusty commands. This gives the whole a kind of lambs-to-slaughter feel. Is this a sly McCrushem nod to the one-way street of universal decay?

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Rusty’s innate talent for mashing cars pummels the senses. The results are spectacular. I feel I have come across a scene of extraordinary violence but the screams of twisted automotive pain are stilled now. Only the curlew calls.

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It’s difficult to imagine how this obliteration was achieved. I stand jaw-dropped in fascination. It is at once shocking and thrilling. The juxtaposition of highland scenery and motorway pile-up is difficult to accommodate. Russian dissidents come to mind. A thoughtful and thought provoking addition is a rusting cement mixer. Is this another of Rusty’s wink to the laws of physics? The great mix? Eternal spinning of countless galactic particles? 

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Whatever one thinks of Rusty’s work, his genius for mashing large metal objects is awe-inspiring. I imagine him manipulating some great mechanical maw that chews up whole cars and spits them out on the roadside. He is shouting “This is art! This is art!” Is it?  Well, how else can he justify what he’s doing? Whatever, with this particular roadside wreckage, he has assured the enduring enigma of his oeuvre. 

Of an evening, as the northern sun settles, I am sure Rusty feels satisfied with his day’s work. I see his smug smile as he pours himself two fingers of his favourite tipple. Surely, the same two fingers that he waves at anyone – resident, tourist or environmentalist – bold enough to comment. Whatever emotions provoked by Rusty’s work, this whole gig just makes me angry. So there!