The James Webb Space Telescope that launched from French Guiana on Christmas Day 2021 and finally reached the second Lagrange point between Earth and the Sun on January 24, 2022, will be used by astronomers for a decade (or even more), to study a wide variety of celestial phenomena, from exoplanets to black holes.
Among its first targets are quasars, objects of unusual brightness, with luminosities ranging from millions of times the mass of the sun to tens of billions of s, and which represent the active galactic 'nucleus' that we can locate in the heart of galaxies with supermassive black holes.
The early works of the Webb
Astronomers will "examine what role quasars play in the evolution of galaxies during these early times," giving us a clearer picture of how the early universe formed, thanks to James Webb being able to look further into history. of the universe than any previous space telescope.
It has a very high resolution infrared instrument, which makes it extremely sensitive to very low levels of light and is perfect for studying the gas that surrounds quasars.
Scientists will be able to examine their properties, as well as those of their host galaxies, giving us the opportunity to study the evolution of galaxies when the universe was less than 800 million years old, or less than 6% of its current age.
Using quasars as a background light source, astronomers will be able to get a better view of the gas between Earth and the quasar itself to learn more about the ionization process . The brighter the quasar, the stronger those absorption lines will be in the spectrum, and the more crucial information about the universe it will give us. A quasar is the perfect object for this purpose due to its very high luminosity.