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Kenneth Harris II – Senior Satellite Engineer & Forbes Magazine ’30 Under 30 Science’ Honoree @kennethharrisii5351
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ABSTRACT
Providing the earliest images of our universe, the James Webb Space Telescope (#JWST) has pushed the frontier of space technology and deep-space imaging to a completely new level! Through a partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), its first full-color images and spectroscopic data were released on July 12, 2022. These images and data have fundamentally changed our understanding of the universe, allowing us to explore uncharted territories and revisit some old familiar sights in the universe.
Hear from Dr. Kenneth Harris II, one of the lead integration engineers on the program to discuss the incredible images and innovations made possible by the JWST. What do these discoveries mean for the future of humankind both on and off this planet? […]
TIMECODES
00:00 Intro
01:51 James Webb Space Telescope
06:00 Webb’s science instruments
08:09 Why study infrared light?
16:55 Segment alignment
20:14 Coarse phasing
21:37 Fine phasing
23:32 Telescope alignment
26:07 Webb’s first deep field
30:24 Exoplanet
33:46 Planetary nebula
34:39 Stephan’s Quintet
35:38 Wolf-Rayet Star
37:20 Carina nebula
39:58 Share knowledge
40:40 Outro
Download slides and read the full abstract here:
https://gotochgo.com/2023/sessions/2574
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Piers Bizony & Roger D. Launius • NASA Space Shuttle: 40th Anniversary • https://amzn.to/3xgsNWh
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All right so again good good afternoon everyone my name is Kenneth Harris um before I get started the views I’m sharing today are my own have to give that little disclaimer before any talk right don’t want want to say I said aliens exist and then go back and tell
On me so I’ve been I’ve been um working on NASA programs for the past 15 years again started in 2008 as an intern um progressed through a number of missions they are earth based missions uh human space flight missions a Mars Rover deep space observation and ultimately exploration so I’m not a software
Engineer more of a systems engineer that is um uh uh based in mechanical engineering it’s not my first time speaking at the go-to conference Series so I really feel at home here so I appreciate you all having me again and to be a a small break from the rhythm of your day that
Is generally software topics uh today I have the pleasure of discussing one aspect of how we are and I have to use this doesn’t work oh it does work clicker works so today I have the pleasure of discussing one aspect of how we are unfolding the universe through the alignment of our state-of-the-art
Primary mirrors on the James web Space Telescope um we’ll then explore some of the amazing images that web has produced for us up to this point show off hands really quickly has anyone heard of the James we Space Telescope yes has anyone seen images from the James W Space
Telescope yes has anyone worked on the James West Space Telescope yes nice all right um so let’s jump right into it here so you all know what it is but I’m going break it down with some of my favorite images here the James W telescope is the world’s largest
Most powerful and most complex space science telescope that we’ve ever built uh web will solve some mysteries of our solar system looking Beyond Distant Worlds uh around the Stars galaxies Galaxy clusters things of that nature I’d be remissed if I didn’t say it is a collaborative Mission between NASA the
European space agency and the Canadian space agency so this image on the bottom left there is going to be your fully stoed James web Space Telescope that’s how we get into rocket before it fully deploys uh what’s another cool one over here to my right I mean to my left your
Right um uh our technician Brian removing the lens cap um or fit checking the lens cap before we actually put it into a stove configuration to get it on the rocket uh the very popular OT or the gold mirrors that you see there um are actually not gold they’re brillium for
Anyone that does not know the amount of gold on James web is about this is about the amount of gold you can fit inside a golf ball um and lastly this picture down here can’t see me in it with This Is Us putting the James W Space
Telescope into the famous chamber a at the Johnson Space uh flight center in Texas right before the hurricane came through but all as well all right um jumping forward here so teams working on web designed several Innovative and this might be too dark but it’s just schematic of web um several Innovative
And Powerful new technologies that make it a very ambitious um set of science goals and I’ll walk through this a little more but here you can just I I want to show this scale of web so it’s about the size of a tennis court when it’s fully uh deployed um but somehow we
Fit into that rocket right it’s made up of 139 small kind of mechanical Motors that help those uh solar um sorry sun shield deploy and a series of actuators that are fitted on the back side of OT or those gold mirrors that allow us to move um the mirrors very very slightly and
I’ll talk about that more as we talk about how the mirrors were pointed toward specific light in the galaxy to help us get to the f photos that we eventually see all right so the lower part of web is where you see your five layer sunshield and that’s going to be your
The picture on my left your right um that’s going to be the sun-facing side of the observatory which features things like your antenna solar power array your um your star tracker your antennas things of that nature and so this is what we call the hot side of the um
Observatory or the sun-facing side and I need to get this exact number right because I don’t want someone to say I misquote it hot side is approximately 400° Kelvin which is about 260° Fahrenheit and 125° c and the observing side and for my audience today we are
All biasly cold side we love the cold side why because that’s the side that I integrated so I’m very biasly cold side so for today all of you are also very biasly cold side and so cold side is the observing side of the telescope where you will see your primary mirrors your
Secondary mirrors as well as your instrumentation for how we actually taking that data process the data and then spit it back out to the public so you all can see the pretty pictures and things of that nature um see other fun facts about Cold versus hot side oh cold
Cold side operates at um ju Theos to your hot side there your cold side operates at 40° Kelvin which is 390° fhe and – 235° and just to let you know this distance here from your uh from what we call the cold side just the top of the sunshi to
The base or the the the top of the hot side is about six Metter so have six meters to make that that temperature difference so on one side you can basically boil water on the other side you can basically freeze nitrogen all right so so very there’s a reason this thing got
Delayed so much I won’t get into that’s not what we’re talking about today that’s not what we’re talking about today so so jumping on to the back again this is why we are biasly Cod side isim isim is the um module or the compo the compartment where the instrumentation Lies We have
Four instruments here on James West Place telescope um I won’t get into details of that today but uh near Cam and Mary are the two that I want to um point out because these are where you get most of your images from the images that you see um again this picture is
Kind of dark hair but uh isim which is going to be on the very very back let’s see I don’t have another picture there isim which is on the very very back is going to uh be your Integrated Science instrument module again contains those four instruments and each instrument is
Almost like a like a Swiss army knife when it comes to what it can what it can do and the way that this telescope affectionately works is that you have light in the Galaxy comes into the telescopes hits those gold mirrors bounces back into the secondary mirror
Which is on that boom that the uh that’s in front of the telescope then that secondary mirror reflects it into that hole that Brian was uncapping at the beginning of this into that hole and then into the instruments that are on the back the instruments are then funnel through their corresponding cables to
The lower part which is the IEC um and then from the I it’s uh rout it down to your antenna on the hot side which then sends dirt so that’s how you get data from the universe into your instrumentation and then back to Earth and I also like to remind everyone that
If we did not go through this alignment we did not go through what it takes to make sure that each of these mirror segments are pointing toward the same point of light what will happen is the light will come into the telescope it would it would hit the telescope and
Then bounce arbitrarily back out so it comes to you 13 billion years it takes that much time for the light to get to you hits the mirrors and then bounces back 13 billion years and we don’t want that so we go through this alignment process and I’ll talk about that in a
Few slides but that alignment process just to put in perspective for you took about 3 months to complete because of how meticulous it was sorry all right so why do we study infrared light um the rainbow of light that the human eye can see in a short p
A short portion of the total range of light that we know as the electromagnetic spectrum telescopes can be Engineers to detect various forms of light based on the instrumentation that’s on board web is able to detect near infrared and M mid infrared wavelengths which the Light Between the
Red ends of the visible spectrum and this is not brand new so Hubble could do small waves of infrared Spitzer could do infrared um some groundbased telescopes can do infrared what’s different is that the power the amount the amount of mirrors that are on board and the
Technology that we took web to is why and how this is going this is a different Mission entirely So speaking a little about about um infrared light in order to capture light that’s traveled more than 13 billion years to reach us from when the universe was only hundreds
Of millions of years old we need a telescope that focus on Gathering light that has stretched or red shift over a time frame into that infrared light spectrum and this is through a phenomenon in the universe we know as cosmological red shift it’s a fun dinner
Topic if you ever get into it just say that everyone’s impressed cosmological red shift they actually what it means so it just means as the light moves from the early Universe it stretches to R and red wavelengths as you see at the beginning universe is more of the Blues
The purples the whites those are more of your ultraviolet light as it gets as the universe expands because the universe does expand as the universe expands so does the light it stretch to rer and R wavelength which is perfect for what we want James web to pick up on
Here all right so this is an example this is not from whip this is an example of a nebula that has been observed for the past probably 50 years um do anyone know what this nebulus is called probably not all right so the this nebula is called the cats paaw
Nebula I don’t name it it’s cats paw nebula there’s also things like the Crab Nebula the Eagle Nebula the HSE head nebula again I don’t make these things up but this is the cats paaw nebula uh so by specializing in infrared light web will be able to see what’s beyond the
Dust so these are three examples of um the same spot in the universe the far leftmost image is going to be uh from the European Southern Observatory and so this earth-based Observatory that is observing nebula through the Earth’s atmosphere so you have layers of atmosphere and then you have the layers
Of dust and clouds in the universe you have to deal with um the middle image is that same that same Observatory now we’re looking at near infrared light and so you can see the difference in them is is just the vastness of how many additional celestial bodies you can see
In the middle image and so the CPA nebula was captured these three times I’m sorry the last one is from uh Spitzer which is going to be your mid infrared light and Spitzer of the Spitzer was an Earth orbiting satellite so you don’t have the the muck and the
Gck from um the Earth’s atmosphere when you do it so like SP Spitzer WB will be able to see through those dust regions um but in a much much higher resolution so what does this type of light uh show us invisible light forming stars are inside dense clouds of gas and dust
Which then scatters and effectively blocks the visible light from then reaching the telescope so this is this is something we found when we launch telescopes uh near the Earth which is one of the reasons that uh Hubble was able to see a lot but not as much in-
Depth as we hoped it to and which is why one of the major reasons James web is in an L2 orbit which is 1.5 million kilom from Earth um L 2 orbit basically so that it gets away from the light and heat from Earth and the Sun and the Moon and anything else
So you turn the satellite you face the sun side obviously toward the sun and the cold side biasly cold side right yeah okay but Co asde you face that into the darkness of space so that those instruments can operate at that um -200 and some degree temperature all
Right okay so before we look at those really pretty pictures uh let’s talk about OT which again those beautiful gold mirrors on the front um and how it’s broken down into these three segments and 18 uh Mirror Mirror segments which make up your primary mirror so the team of Engineers and
Scientists from um um ball NASA and the Space Telescope Science Institute use data from our ner cam ner cam which is one of the instruments which is on ISM cide which is on isum um to progressively help to align this telescope the process took place in
Seven phases that I’ll get into in a little bit over the course of three months uh which culminated in a fully aligned telescope ready for instrument uh commissioning and again remember let’s keep in mind these are not the pretty pictures these are the pictures that we’re using just for scientific
Purposes to show that a we can see something the telescope functions B each mirror is actually seeing something and then see how much of that image is each mirror actually bringing back to you and the goal is for it to work together as a single mirror um that each of the 18
Primary mirror segments need to be able to work with each other in in in a fraction of a wavelength and what we found is that that measurement mathematically comes out to about 5050 nanometers or so which is incredibly small so think we use this visualization so if the entire telescope or the entire
OT is the size of the United States then each individual mirror segment would be the size of Texas and so as we try to align these giant Texas type puzzle pieces each mirror would have to be within a margin of error of 1.5 in from each other that’s the spectrum of how
Close this thing has to be it’s weird all right um so the first step we need to do is we need to align the telescope relative to the spacecraft so what you’re looking at here is an initial alignment Mosaic this basically says that we cut the telescope on point
Well we pointed it toward an actual star system which is star system HD 84406 it doesn’t have a name for whatever reason it’s just HD h 446 maybe elon’s kid’s next name um so anyway hel Mose um so you cut this thing on you point it toward the star
That you know doesn’t have a whole lot of other light around it and you say okay we know that we have 18 identified sections of light here go ahead and count it it’s 18 and so you take those 18 and actually I know cuz someone’s
Going to say a 17 this one right here is actually two one two this is two so count that one it’s cuz someone was going to say it was 17 so you like you take that and then you see that there are 18 there are 18 small dots of light
Up there so we know that the telescope is pointed and seeing um we know that each mirror segment is capturing light from somewhere we didn’t take that we take that image and overlay it uh specifically with that mapping mirror segment that I showed you before so each
One now has an assigned segment that is seeing that piece of light so you see here this is going to be your left wing this is going to be your right wing and then the corresponding ones outside of that but you see this doesn’t really have any shape right this is just kind
Of a scattered plot of of light at this point so uh but keep in mind that this star was chosen specifically because it’s easily identifiable and not crowded but other star and star lights and things of that nature so it makes it easy to know that at least it’s looking
At that same blob of light whatever that whatever that light might be okay um so one by one each mirror segment uh determines which segment creates which segmented image after matching the mirror segments to their respective images we can then tilt the mirrors to bring all those images near a common
Point for further analysis and we call this the image array so before you had the segmented array now you have the image array which is the result of what’s Happening Here oh wait let me go back one other thing so one of the main reasons that we go through this alignment process is
Because even though we take the time to try to align it here on Earth there’s a lot of things that can literally rattle the satellite so when it comes to moving it when it comes to stowing it putting on a rocket the vibrations from rocket launch being deployed in space anything can shift
That those mirrors from again that 1.5 in 50 nanometers whichever you’re thinking about um Can shift it from that that point of view that we needed to be at and so this the reason why we go to this 3mon long alignment process and so the second step and there’s a video here
The second step is known as segment alignment after we have the image array from each of these uh segments we can perform what’s known as segment alignment which corrects most of the large positioning errors of mirror segments we do this through a mathematical analysis that we know is
Phase uh retrieval to position each of the mirror segments and the secondary mirror itself so that well I’m sorry let me back up we position each of the secondary we position each of the segments itself and then fold the secondary mirror or put the boom down so that all the
Um I guess I don’t know how to define it the the small margins that could that could come from other scattered light it kind of it goes away once this segment alignment happens and you start to see that the actual shape of the James web telescope or the OT starts to take form
With these light with these light segments and so we begin by defocusing the segmented image so you see it starts off kind of blurred and then goes to being more focuses so that is the defocusing aspect by and this is done by moving the secondary mirror slightly to
Adjust for those alignments that we calculated in the initial image and the segmented alignment sessions adjustments of the segment are then result in these 18 well corrected individual telescopes so now you have instead of just having a bunch of random telescopes pointed well instead of just having a bunch of random
Blobs you now have literally 18 telescopes on one but that’s not the point of where we want it to be one focused unified primary mirror so the next step we then get into image stacking again there should be there should be a video uh to put all of
The light into a singular Place each segment image must be stacked on top of one another the third phase of this process we call Image stacking we tilt the mirror segments so the lights from each mirror falls on on top of each other at a common point in the middle of
The detector and for the sake of this the middle of detector is going to be again that part that Brian was uncapping at the beginning um and while that and while that concentrates all the light into a single place the segments themselves are not fully cooperating still with each
Other still those 18 different mirror segments we still want it to be one and and through the stacking process the mirror segments were managed in groups of um in three groups again that a that a group group it’s going to be your internal kind of ring to the telescope
And then uh the external Group B and Group C which alternates as you go around the perimeter of the telescope and so this process prepares us for the next stage something we call course phasing and so course phasing outlines what I was saying earlier about the um
The actuators that are on the backs of our of the um the primary mirrors as well as the Pistons you can see this bottom part here is just the up and down motion that we use to tilt our mirrors specifically where we need to go so although image stacking puts all the
Light into one place specifically on the detector the segments are still again 18 smaller telescop rather than the big one the segments need to be lined up from each other in order for us to get that data that we want in the way that we want it and course phasing conducted
Three times during the commission process measures it then measures and corrects the vertical displacement of those mirror segments using the technology that we know is is dispersed Fringe sensing and this is used from near cam uh the light spectrum near cam from 20 separate pairings of mirror
Segments Again by the up and down motion of the Piston to get us to that that 50 nanometer difference um what you see here is a what you see there is a um a pole pattern a pole pattern that basically is showing you the the margin of difference between um each mirror
Segments because they’re done in groups of two and so we we do each one in groups of Two And it basically shows the alignment variation from the Pistons that you moved and so this is course phasing the next phase that we get into is what’s known as fine phasing so after
All of that after you get it to a point where it is now looking at the same point you have those 18 telescopes that form to one you then uh take those 18 and you put them in the center of the detector and then you course correct
Using the Pistons now you get to fine phasing and we do this what we do is we then turn uh to a different method of phase retrieval where it’s across the entire aperture of the entire telescope at the same time and for that we’re going to take the telescope completely
Out of focus and instead we use lenses that are in one of the scientific instruments that are actually on board and what it does is it automatically um generates to defocus those images as you’re seeing in the uh in the slide here and we took and and when we look at
These image image it takes a Hole uh it just tells us that we have still small tiny alignment areas when it comes to the telescoping it the the image of James web here is actually when it comes back it’s actually highlighting the images that are being moved slightly during the fine phasing
In the appropriate defocusing section here so your lighter color ones are going to be the ones that are being defocused at that time and so just like course phasing fine phasing is also conducted three times directly after the co phasing so course phing phing fine phasing course phasing fine phasing
Three times um throughout this session and then they’re routinely done throughout web’s entire lifespan so these operations measure and correct the remaining alignment using the same defocusing method that we used at the beginning in the segmented alignment and then however instead of using the secondary mirror we use the optical
Elements that’s found within that scientific instrument and it varies from uhg84 plus 4 plus 8 and that’s just varying depths of defocusing more or less all right and now we are at the more or less the final step so there’s really not much left here to do except
After you’re fine phasing because we’ve only done it for one instrument this point near cam the telescope will be um will need to be aligned to the field of view for the other three instruments that are on board so now we extend that alignment to all the other instruments
Which are in isome and there’s four isams which live on the cold side there it is the cold side of the telescope and so we’re lining all of those now um and what we find is that if one is a little off we’ll adjust for that instrument um individually as
Opposed to again the full telescope and this can I mean as variations happen we can still realign to make sure things are being captured in the way we hope them to be captured all right so now that that full process is over after after we apply the
Field of view and the correct that are needed the key thing left to address is the actual removal of any small residual um positioning errors that’s in the final mirror segments and so we measure and make Corrections using that fine phase processing we will do a final
Check of the image quality against each other and then what you get there is again pretty dark but you see that final image on my left your right is going to be um James web looking at a star or star system and all of the light coming
To one point in the detector and you are rendered this this pretty again it’s not a pretty picture but this pretty picture of a star system and this is actually this image here fun factor is a different image than um HD 8446 got that memorized this one’s a lot
Longer I’ll read it to you I this one is two Mass two Mass J1 755 442 plus 65512 77 that’s his name anyway anyway so that’s the first that’s the first image that was publicly released that showed that we were all looking at one exact um uh point in our
Night sky this one on the left here is actually a selfie that was rendered from the James W Space Telescope we have what’s on board called a pupil lens and actually just allows us to one it gives us really cool selfies like this but two it allows us to use algorithms to um
Again see those very very small errors or small misalignments when it comes to uh making sure that all the mirror segments are aimed toward the right positioning all right so now we get into the fun stuff the pretty pictures um I’m sure all of you have seen have you all seen
The first Deep Field view of web Yes yes again so this one was taken from near um from near cam so still to date and this is one of like the first images that we produc James web has produced the deepest and the sharpest infrared image
Of a distant universe so far to date and that still holds true today um we affectionally know it as the webs as web’s first Deep Field Hubble had many deep Fields um I didn’t want to compare here because we’re talking about web not Hubble but this one is vastly more
In-depth more um more revealing of the star systems out there again because of rare shift because of how the light has has stretched one of the fun facts about is that because of the combined mass of this galaxy cluster um it actually acts as a gravitational lens that magnifies
More distant galaxies and by gravitational lens what I mean is around these areas you see these galaxies are starting to Bevel a little bit is actually gravitational lens just because of the mass of the star systems that are included in in that Galaxy this Deep
Field uh again was taken by near Cam and is a composite image that it just means it’s stacked on top of each other um and this image took 12.5 hours to make to put in perspective so about half a day to put in perspective web’s Deep Field
Took a little over two weeks three weeks two three weeks and this was just put James web up there okay we’re looking at the right area we’re familiar with this point it in that direction give it half a day and this is what it comes back
With and so this is just a sample of what what it could really do so this image again shows the uh Galactic cluster smax 0723 as it appears about 4.6 billion years ago um with many galaxies both in front and behind it as well but what you
Can see is that James web through this near Mid infrared you actually get through a lot more of those uh dust clouds and blooms and things like that that we were seeing in some of our earlier Hubble images in addition to taking this image um James Webb also utilized
Instrumentation on board um uh from spectr spectroscopy um to reveal physical and chemical proper of planets so is that my next slide it’s not but what we’ll see what I’ll show you in a further slide is how we took the actual image and compar it to a spectrum of overum to again see
Some physical and chemical properties of um planets out there and then I also discuss some exoplanets as well and so okay hopefully you all can see this um so let’s let me put this in perspective for you just a little bit um the first deep fill image showed us a
Galaxy cluster with um thousands of galaxies that are composed of hundreds and thousands and millions and maybe billions of planets celestial bodies whatever’s out there so um go with me for a minute imagine that it’s nighttime imagine you’re in the countryside imagine that you look up and you’re
Sitting under the cosmos that’s looming over your head right bunch of stars that you can see even though it’s through Earth’s atmosphere with your naked eye and so what you’re going to do is you’re going to extend your hand out as far as it can go but put your arm out extend
Your hand as far as it can go put your index finger out and on the very very tip of your index finger is a grain of sand and then that grain of sand is what holds the Deep image field from the James web Space Telescope and so what
You see is that how small we you we all are in the grand scheme of everything that’s happening in the universe um and this is one of the main reasons that we explore this is why we seek to understand because even what we know is
A Deep Field view is really just a small microcosm of the vastness that’s out there right and so just again think put that in perspective for you blows my mind every time I think about it but that’s one of the main reasons um that I am so excited to see these images from
Where because we just continue to scratch the surface of what’s really out there and speaking of scratch the surface another instrument I know you all might have seen this before for my folks that have seen James web um but utilizing the um transmission spectrums on James web again this is an example of
How we can see some of the chemical and physical properties of uh of some of the exoplanets so once we’re able to use the mirrors as that singular telescope what we can do is we can point it toward what we know to be existing exoplanets and we define exoplanets basically meaning that
It’s a planet it’s a planet that resides in the goldilock zone of a star no need for the lesson on goldilock Zone but godlock zone is it it it can have water on the planet it’s not too far or too close to the star for the water to evaporate or
It’s not too far for the Earth for the water to freeze liquid water um so we know that there are many many many go there are many many many goldilock zones and exoplanets that exist um the Kepler mission did a great job of that and so using the instruments on board James web
We we’ve been able to capture the distant signature of water along with the evidence of clouds and Haze in atmosphere surrounding hot puffy gas giant planets orbiting distant star systems so this an example from wasp 96b um it’s one of more than the 5,000 that were confirmed uh within the Milky
Way so this actual exoplant in the Milky Way and what you can see here is the and this measured in photon so what you see I guess it’s it’s called translational spectroscopy and basically means that as uh so you have the Stars you have the star and you have the orbiting planet we
Take measurements of the star and then we take measurements of the planet as it passes in front of the star and what happens is that when we’re taking these measurements the photons or the light might be absorbed by the atmosphere we know that exoplanets typically have atmospheres because you need to be able
To hold in those molecules gra atmosphere gravity gravity holds in the molecules that you need um and so because of that we know that the light the light we we know through other missions how light and photons react to Atmosphere so we know what hydrogen oxygen atoms and molecules look like and
Water molecules look like when we’re looking into these exoplanets and so this just an example of how we see waves of light as it corresponds to the corresponding reading for a molecule and so this is really exciting because it’s just the again tip of the iceberg when it comes to exploring
Exoplanets um so this that same image the def fill View and what we’ve done here is we’ve actually broken it down into what we’d like to think is the most exciting out of here is a lot of really exciting ones but you see some of the older galaxies that are 13.1 billion
Years and what you see there is the wavelength but the spikes on the wavelength are what we’re seeing to be again those molecules that we observe from the spectr or from the translational spectroscopy of one of the instruments um trying to see if there’s anything else cool for you here oh again breaking
It down um the image on the left is from near cam image on the right is from near spec two separate instruments um but two different uh capabilities we got got got about five minutes left so I’m I’m G speed through these last few just a bit um so this is
An example of the Southern Ring Nebula so some stars in my opinion save the best for life last the Demmer star in the center um has been sending out rings of gas and dust for thousands and thousands of years and again that D those dust that dust cloud also blocks
Light but since James web season infrared it can also see the dust cloud as well as the stars that hide behind the dust cloud um so this is an example of a star system that’s approximately uh two 2,000 about 2,000 3,000 light years away to put it in perspective for you
One light year is 6 trillion miles so this thing is 2500 3,000 light years away I’m just to put it in perspective for you again 6 trillion miles um let’s jump to this quickly do you see show of hands do you see four galaxies here or five show of hands for
Four show of hands for five that’s correct it is five it’s five um stephin quintet just a visual group of of five galaxies best known for its appearance in its Wonderful Life and today James web has well not today but James web has reveal or re observe Stephan’s quintet which is the Galaxy
Actually reacting to one another they’re their gravity is actually pulling and tearing each other apart so while it looks like very Majestic very beautiful you think about the concept of these galaxies are ripping each other apart that’s not that’s not good at all so so think about like that um
So one of the newer images that we’ve released from James web recently within the past month or so is this is this image of a wolf rant star which is called w224 nebula wolf rant stars are known to be basically dust clouds and so what we
Did was we we later an image one from Miry one from near Cam and what you see is you see the dust clouds that are coming from the wolf rain and star here and then you overlay it or you you you have overlaid it with what came from
Near and now you can see beyond those dust clouds what comes beyond the wolf Ray and stars and again for perspective for you there’s a little range at the bottom to show you two light years um and just how uh far across this thing goes so with and without one and two
Three and no I’m just I’m just kidding um so the 10 the 10 light years why nebula is made of material cast off from aging stars and random star systems and it’s just constantly constantly pushing out dust which is and we found that Wolf Rain stars are responsible for a lot of
The dust in the universe but again thanks to other missions we’ve done we know for a fact that we can use infrared light to see through those dust clouds and hopefully overcome again that cosmological red shift and hopefully see into the reasoning behind why wolf Raiden Stars actually produce what they
In what they ultimately produce um let me jump to this one so one of my this my second favorite image my second favorite image from the Hubble is known as the cosmic Cliffs um this image was taken by Hubble uh when I was relatively young um and what you see is a really
Really thick dust cloud which you see some images Beyond it kind of in this Red Spectrum what comes next from the James webspace telescope is again one of its first images known as Karina’s nebula again those Cosmic Cliffs um where you’re seeing almost in it’s not a
Thre Dimension but you can see just the ultraviolet that comes from these young stars that are starting to uh uh sculpt and be formed throughout the Galaxy um so you can see literally into the dust clouds here which makes it a lot more appealing when it comes to
When it comes to uh uh exploring the Galaxy as a whole so web continues to reveal um how even the small pockets of the Galaxy can be uh young nurseries for younger star system and so lastly this is my absolute favorite picture from Hubble it’s known
As The Pillars of Creation it came out in 1995 it’s one of the first images I I saw um of space there was a a poster of it hanging in my dad’s office and one of the one of the amazing things to think about is just how large this thing is um
I don’t I don’t remember the exact number but I I believe that the pillar itself is about n light years across from top to bottom um and so you think about just how vast that is and then again what’s hidden inside of it um when it comes to what
Hubble can see and then ultimately what James Webb can see so James Webb did take a picture of this next slide just tilt your heads like a little to the whatever Direction This is for me and so what you see here is James web’s rendering of The Pillars of Creation so
These newly formed star systems are really the the scene Stillers when when it comes to this um what you see is the bright orbs that are typically um defraction spikes that lie outside of those Dusty pillars um these are really really heavy newly born starom which are
Here which kind of looks like the eye of something if you were to play it out to be that way those are actually younger star that are being that are beginning to be born and so um these Stars periodically shoot out supersonic jets that collide with clouds of material
Like those thick pillars and this sometimes also results in um the the the clouds kind of shaking a bit so if you took a picture now as opposed to um you know a few years from now you might see a little different just because the clouds again are are moving from from a
Result of those um star systems being being born and so this is my new takes the crown is my new favorite image from the James West Space Telescope because it has kind of a nostalgic feel to it um I won’t get to to to in-depth to that
And lastly I’d like to throw this into all my presentations we as Engineers have a responsibility to constantly give back to the Next Generation in some way um I encourage you all to visit classrooms I encourage you to participate in whatever way you can to help encourage our students to continue
To pursue this field of engineering um representation matters you being their matters you have to um sometimes meet them where they are and in whatever capacity they need to be um so I’d like to throw that at the end of my presentation even if it seems a
Bit random I like to recruit Engineers as much as I can any chance I get um I’ll stop here because I was told to leave time for questions if you have questions otherwise thank you so much for being here and don’t forget to rate the session in the app thank [Applause] you
1 Comment
Great speaker, great talk. Thank you!