- The Universe is 13.8 billion years old and 46.5 light years in circumference. The Universe is 13.8 Billion Years Old, But the visible Universe is 92 Billion Light Years wide. The early Universe itself expanded at a rate faster than light.
- A light-year is the distance light can travel in a year, and nothing can go faster than that—in the Universe, a straight line doesn’t necessarily define distance, nor do those distances remain the same over time. Space isn’t flat and is also inextricably linked to time in the form of spacetime. The fabric of the Universe isn’t just space but spacetime. Our Universe is expanding. Spacetime is a kind of backdrop to which the galaxies are effectively nailed. That backdrop is not material; it can develop at any rate.
- The expansion of space is not slowing down; it’s speeding up. We are losing 20,000 stars every second to an area that will forever remain beyond our future view. We can currently see objects 46 billion light years away, but we see them as they were in the distant past.
- What lies beyond our perception? Nobody knows. Our sun is 94 million miles away. Light leaving the sun takes eight minutes to get here. Black holes block out the surrounding light. It took 380 thousand years after the Big Bang for light to begin. Stars are all round, but the Universe is primarily flat.
- Neutrinos have almost zero mass. They are so small they zip right through mass. A neutrino is a subatomic particle similar to an electron but has no electrical charge and a tiny mass. They are everywhere. Neutrinos are produced in nuclear reactions. Neutrinos are extremely difficult to detect because they interact weakly with other particles.
- Our sun will expand into a red giant in one billion years. It will eat up our earth. Our sun ends up as a white dwarf before it goes black.
- The new Webb telescope has discovered six galaxies from the very early Universe that shouldn’t exist. They’re thought to have formed incredibly early in the cosmological timeline, only about 500-700 million years after the Big Bang. The Webb telescope has also found a black hole with a mass of more than 9 million suns. A key ingredient for life is carbon. The element has many empty spaces in its electron shell, making it capable of arranging solid bonds with many other elements. Our telescope found a lot of carbon in the early Universe—Saturn, whose massive, dazzling array of rings has a tiny moon with frozen water.
- A dust and star galaxy. This galaxy is spouting off new stars at a record pace.
- Behind this cluster sits an even more distant galaxy. This photo shows the central region of the galaxy cluster. This image includes the supernova in its parent galaxy. Its double core gives it a complex shape.
- The Webb telescope has found numerous early-universe galaxies with large masses and well-developed disks—in fact, they occur about ten times more frequently than expected.
- The James Webb Space Telescope’s view of the spectacular Phantom Galaxy (Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team).
The Universe is 13.8 billion years old, 46.5 light years around.
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared view of the Pillars of Creation strikes a chilling tone. Thousands of stars that exist in this region disappear from view — and seemingly endless layers of gas and dust become the centrepiece. The detection of dust by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) is extremely important — dust is a major ingredient for star formation. Many stars are actively forming in these dense blue-grey pillars. When knots of gas and dust with sufficient mass form in these regions, they begin to collapse under their own gravitational attraction, slowly heat up, and eventually form new stars. Although the stars appear to be missing, they aren’t. Stars typically do not emit much mid-infrared light. Instead, they are easiest to detect in ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. In this MIRI view, two types of stars can be identified. The stars at the end of the thick, dusty pillars have recently eroded most of the more distant material surrounding them but they can be seen in mid-infrared light because they are still surrounded by cloaks of dust. In contrast, blue tones indicate stars that are older and have shed most of their gas and dust. Mid-infrared light also details dense regions of gas and dust. The red region toward the top, which forms a delicate V shape, is where the dust is both diffuse and cooler. And although it may seem like the scene clears toward the bottom left of this view, the darkest grey areas are where densest and coolest regions of dust lie. Notice that there are many fewer stars and no background galaxies popping into view. Webb’s mid-infrared data will help researchers determine exactly how much dust is in this region — and what it’s made of. These details will make models of the Pillars of Creation far more precise. Over time, we will begin to understand more clearly how stars form and burst out of these dusty clouds over millions of years. Contrast this view with Webb’s near-infrare
