James Webb Space Telescope Images

Webb’s First Deep Field (Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, & STScI)

Technological advancements into our exploration of outer space by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have helped us increase the furthest distance and earliest time we have ever rendered starry objects into image by looking out toward the Universe.

Stephan’s Quintet (Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, & STScI)

Thanks to a team of developers from NASA, ESA, & CSA that began work on Hubble's successor, or Next Generation Space Telescope, in 1996 up until its launch in December 2021, the James Webb telescope is an upgrade to our vision into space and the objects that warp spacetime such as stars, exoplanets, galaxies, and even black holes.

Supermassive Black Hole Silhouette

A close-up image of the M87 galaxy core and the supermassive black hole at its center (Image: NASA).

On April 10, 2019, the first-ever image of a supermassive black hole's silhouette was captured and presented by a team of international astronomers. The network of telescopes known as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) set out to obtain an image of a black hole using a technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). This image depicts the center of the galaxy M87, 53 million light-years away with a noticeable dark spot at its core.

Gravitational Wave Signal

Gravitational waves from a double black hole merger about 1.3 billion light-years away from us were directly detected on September 14, 2015. This gigantic, distant, and ancient event caused our space-time to expand and contract by 1/100,000 of a nanometer due to the sub-atomic effects of passing gravitational waves. They were measured by the two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detectors last year, while it recently made big headlines earlier this year celebrating 100 years of Albert Einstein's general relativity. This measurement provides a verification of the theory's correctness, more proof for the existence of black holes, and reveals a phenomenon which had never before been directly seen in nature, opening windows into new areas of astronomy and cosmology research.

""These amazing observations are the confirmation of a lot of theoretical work, including Einstein’s general theory of relativity, which predicts gravitational waves,” says physicist Stephen Hawking at the University of Cambridge, UK" (source).


A double black hole merger from long ago recently caused minute changes in our space-time (Image: LIGO).

Extrasolar Planets

The status of Pluto as a planet was never entirely certain for over 75 years since its discovery. It is the tenth largest planetary object in order of ascending size, right after dwarf planet Eris. Our former ninth planet was discovered by Clyde W. Tombaugh on February 18, 1930, and it is the most widely recognized dwarf planet in our Solar System, and the Kuiper belt's largest object. Pluto's status as the ninth planet from our Sun was reviewed in 2006 due to an International Astronomical Union debate on how to classify such large objects. Even up to this current day and age, despite its status demotion to dwarf planet, Pluto is still widely regarded as a favorite among planetary objects in our Solar System and these provocative photographs were taken as firsts by the New Horizons satellite just last year to finally show just how much of a mysterious and puzzling place it really is.

The New Horizons space probe was designed by NASA to study the extreme conditions of dwarf planet Pluto and its natural satellite Charon, about 3.6 billion miles away from our Sun. This mission, not unlike NASA's Messenger probe, which also finalized a journey to explore the innermost conditions of our Solar System near Mercury earlier the same year, took nine and a half years to complete since its launch in January 19, 2006. The New Horizons satellite was successful at localizing and imaging Pluto and its moon, also detecting many surprising and familiar surface features including an atmosphere, glaciers, mountainous regions, great plains, and even water ice distributed all over its surface terrain. Arriving at Pluto has appealed to our collective sense of bewilderment for reminding us about how beautiful and exciting rediscovering a foreign planet really is.


Pluto with its moon Charon on the left as New Horizons quickly approaches its main objective (Image: NASA).

In the midst of this first look at Pluto as our ex-ninth planet, we now have theories of a new extrasolar object, harboring ten times the gravity on Earth and a wondrously eccentric orbit, located right outside our Solar System. The ninth planet spot is now more coveted than ever!

Journey to a Celestial Object

The European Space Agency (ESA) has confirmed last November 12, 2014, the very first time that a spacecraft, known by the name of Rosetta, was able to successfully drop its lander Philae onto the comet nucleus of 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko after a ten year long voyage that began in March of 2004. As far as a soft landing goes, this event had a lengthy bounce to remember, placing the instrument in a deeply-shadowed region on the surface of 67P, where it was able to conduct partially its scientific exploration. After a few days of gathering data from the ice and vapor on the comet's exterior, Philae's batteries were almost completely depleted, with just enough energy to transmit fresh results back to the Rosetta mothership orbiting approximately 19 mi (30 km) above the surface. The lander, now in a state of hibernation, does have a backup solar-panel power source and just might receive enough sunlight to reactivate itself within the next few months. In addition, Rosetta is the first spacecraft to effectively orbit and escort a comet as it reaches its perihelion alongside component Philae.


Rosetta's Philae lander grips the surface of comet 67P in this illustration (Image: ESA).

It is thought that because of this study, 67P's water composition is mostly different from that of Earth's, and objects with this kind of provenance or composition indigenous to the Kuiper belt are not responsible for Earthly aqueous bodies. This mission is considered to be a great accomplishment for astrophysics, uncovering new and old motivations for space travel including mining extraterrestrial objects and discovering water's potential origin. Although it is not unlike NASA's early landing on an asteroid in 2001, an upcoming German and Japanese satellite is expected to achieve a similar endeavor with another space rock in the future in order to gain a better understanding of the resources available from space that are relevant to life.

Primordial Gravitational Waves

On March 17, 2014, it was officially announced that signs of gravitational waves, or ripples in the fabric of space-time, had been discovered in the data collected from the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation as an imprint left by our Universe approximately 380,000 years after the Big Bang. This is considered to be a plausible advance towards the indirect detection of Albert Einstein's gravity waves, originally predicted to exist in his general theory of relativity of 1916. The BICEP2 team, located at the South Pole, has identified a swirling pattern throughout the light of the CMB known as B-mode polarization, believed to be the result of inflationary gravitational waves. "We’ve found the smoking gun evidence for inflation and we’ve also produced the first image of gravitational waves across the sky" (source).


A polarized light pattern in the CMB caused by early gravitational waves (Image: BICEP2).

Finding gravitational waves embedded in the CMB would reasonably support the theory of inflation, originally proposed by physicist Alan Guth, which describes an initial period of highly accelerated expansion for the Universe that smoothed out irregularities in space-time and made the cosmos look almost the same in every direction. The CMB is the oldest electromagnetic radiation we can see from after that period, thought to have emerged at a time when matter was only beginning to form structures out of a hot and dense plasma. This early light now fills every region of space and reaches us in the form of microwaves with an average temperature of 2.725 K, while it is considered to be the Big Bang's afterglow. Along with providing important information about the universe's early development, including tentative effects of ancient gravity waves, the CMB also reveals key insights into features of today's universe such as apparent composition and overall uniformity.

Special Note: Although there is new evidence suggesting that interstellar dust levels may have modified the interpretation of these results by being higher than previously determined, the theoretical basis for gravitational waves is still very strong and this latest outcome does not completely rule out their existence. 8*]

Large-Scale Quantum Superposition

Scientists have succeeded in creating the first basic quantum machine using a small visible paddle that resonates in a mixed quantum state of moving and not moving. The system works by having the paddle connected to a superconducting electrical circuit, cooling it down, and then carefully setting it to vibrate. In doing so, they have shown that it is possible to induce a quantum-mechanical ground state from a regularly-sized object previously thought to only obey the laws of classical physics. It is currently considered to be the largest object ever placed in a quantum superposition of states artificially as of August, 2009.

In general, the larger an object is, the harder it is for it to maintain a coherent quantum superposition of states. This peculiar idea is commonly illustrated by a famous thought experiment devised by physicist Erwin Schrödinger, which points out the surprising behavior of the quantum world if it could be readily applied to objects on a macroscopic level. In Schrödinger’s cat, a sealed box governs the state of a cat that's inside it through a quantum radioactive process which occurs randomly and controls whether a vial of poison gas within the box is effectively broken or left intact. Since there is no way of knowing the cat's condition without looking inside the box, the cat is proposed to be in a combined state of both alive and dead, just as a quantum object can be in multiple states at once. However, as soon as the box is opened and an observer becomes entangled with a specific outcome, the cat's quantum superposition of states immediately decoheres into one apparent result.

Amazingly, in the Many-Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, developed by physicist Hugh Everett III, the universe itself is thought to exist in a quantum superposition of infinitely many states that each correspond to a different quantum "world," or parallel universe. These many worlds are similar to pocket universes existing within a unified multiverse but instead of them being far away from each other, they appear probabilistically within the same physical space. As a result, any event, no matter how small, may act as a point from which every possible future will diverge and exist within its very own timeline. This view allows both alive and dead states of the cat to persist simultaneously but only within separate realities, regardless of whichever one has been observed after the box is opened. Although moving and not moving states for a macroscopic object would normally be measured independently of one another as well, a small paddle is able to retain its combined state of motion through the use of an experimental setup that substantially delays the onset of decoherence. The achievement can be interpreted as a major step towards showing how the rules of quantum mechanics could also be applied to the movement of everyday objects.

Robotic Vehicles on Mars

Interest in exploring the Red Planet started with the first robots designed to investigate it in the 1960s, and continues today with the Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity, where recent efforts have shown to be what looks like evidence of an ancient riverbed and organic compounds on the Martian surface. Organic compounds are those with molecules containing carbon and are potential indicators of life.


Mars and Earth riverbeds in comparison (Image: NASA).


A landscape of Mars captured by Pathfinder in 1997 (Image: NASA).

Mars is the fourth planet from our Sun and is believed to be about 10.7% the mass of Earth and approximately half of its size. It is currently thought that sustainable life on Mars may be possible and might have existed there a long time ago, if Earth and Mars share similar planetary histories. We know that they both have polar ice caps, an atmosphere, and exceptional terrain features. With several vehicles set to test for habitability on Mars in the future, humans will be able to properly assess whether a manned mission to Mars prevails as a safe and advantageous exploration plan.

Higgs Boson Found

In around December of 2011, preliminary research efforts began to hint at the presence of a new bosonic particle with Higgs-like properties. It was officially announced on July 4, 2012, by the ATLAS and CMS teams working at CERN, that these findings were definitely signs of something important. Regarded as the key to understanding the origin of mass, even the spark that caused the Big Bang, the new Higgs boson's unique yet brief appearance quickly became the object of joyous celebration worldwide as the excitation ripples of a particle collision revealed a signal, measuring near the 125-126 GeV mass-energy range, that had finally brought into reality the standard model particle predicted to exist since 1964.


Results consistent with the expected signature of the Higgs boson (Image: CMS).

Out of the four fundamental interactions known to exist: gravitation, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force, and the weak nuclear force, it is believed that the exchange of a boson acting as a force carrier particle is what allows each kind of field or interaction to work. Just as the photon mediates the electromagnetic force, and the strong force gluon holds together particles inside the nucleus of an atom, the Higgs boson is responsible for converting Higgs field energy into corresponding elementary particles with mass.

Although fermions are the elementary particles that acquire mass to become the basic building blocks of ordinary matter, coupling with the Higgs field, an invisible energy condensate which permeates throughout everything and the vacuum of empty space, is also thought to give the weak nuclear force bosons: W+, W-, and Z, their exceptionally large masses. This process is due to a spontaneous symmetry breaking of the electroweak interaction, which sets apart the electromagnetic and weak forces, described to be unified parts of the same interaction only in an environment like that of the early Universe.

The level of certainty in this finding suggests that there is enough evidence to conclude a reasonably sound discovery. "A 5-sigma result represents a one-in-3.5 million chance of the result being noise. This is undeniable proof that a boson, with very Higgs-like qualities, has been discovered by the two detectors" (source). Along with being its own antiparticle, various other specific properties characterize the standard model Higgs boson, a few of which were accurately detected in the experimental results of this year. The recently found boson's rapid decay into the appropriate lighter particles, for example, serves as some evidence to label it the Higgs boson and to support the concept of the Higgs field. Future research efforts in this area may also clear the way for an new sector of physics entirely. "Supersymmetry provides both a natural context for the Higgs field and a possible explanation for the small but finite value of dark energy" (source). Known for its major innovations in modern science, the Large Hadron Collider's recent landmark achievement will serve as a crowning jewel for everyone who has patiently worked hard in anticipation of the new boson's arrival.

Water on the Moon

With the discovery of evidence confirming the existence of water on the Moon on October 9, 2009, the Moon is no longer thought of as a dry space rock. NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, has reportedly found a significant amount of frozen water on the floor of a lunar crater.


Centaur being launched towards the Moon by LCROSS (Image: NASA).

LCROSS was designed to look for signs of water near the Moon's South Pole. The probe itself was successful at detecting natural water in the form of ice particle debris within the impact plumes created by the empty Centaur rocket stage's collision with the Moon.


The satellite's impact locations on the Moon's surface (Images: NASA).

The satellite made a total of two collisions on the Moon's surface, which were studied by it, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) partner satellite, and telescopes all over the world. The first LCROSS impact was from the Centaur rocket component, ejected towards Cabeus crater (red) near the Moon's South Pole (green). Once water particles were successfully identified, the second impact was caused by the LCROSS probe itself crashing into the surrounding Cabeus crater area (blue) to complete the mission. The LRO remained in orbit collecting data and did not undergo any collision.

Lunar water can be used by astronauts as a natural resource while in space. It is not practical to transport the amount of Earth water needed for long-term human space exploration into space, so this discovery provides astronauts with a longer potential stay on the Moon. The LCROSS and LRO were the first two missions carried out by NASA as a part of the United States' 2004 Vision for Space Exploration program, designed to increase public enthusiasm for space exploration.

NASA has been preparing for a return mission to the Moon in order to conduct research and attempt to live off the land in 2018 or 2019, a date that would mark the 50th Anniversary of NASA's first manned Moon landing, Apollo 11 (1969).

Innumerable Galaxies

From September 2003 to January 2004, the NASA Hubble Space Telescope was pointed at a region of space with a low brightness and only a few stars in the near field. The region was about the size of a grain of sand at a distance of one meter away from the human eye. With all of the data accumulated during that time, the telescope captured an image that exemplifies just how immense the universe really is.


"Humankind's deepest portrait of the visible universe ever" as referred to by NASA (Image: NASA).

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field image is considered to be one of the most humbling and profound images of all time. The countless number of individual galaxies revealed is not only surprising but also very informative. An image like this makes the universe look like it is truly abundant with other galaxies and stars. It is also interesting to note that the light from the farthest galaxies in this picture has been traveling towards us since early after the Big Bang and represents what those galaxies looked like about 13 billion years ago. This information has enabled a base measurement of early galaxies' distribution and their evolution.

Hubble's successor, the James Webb Space Telescope, is scheduled to be up and running in 2018.