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2021. ♪ this is al jazeera and these are the top stories. the u.s. and saudi arabia have signed 18 agreements in energy, investment, space, and health. biden said he race the murder of jamal khashoggi with the crown prince. >> he said he was not personally responsible for it and he took action against those who were responsible and then i went on to talk more about how dealing with any opposition or criticism
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of the saudi administration in other countries was viewed as a violation of human rights. >> joe biden met the palestinian president and the occupied west bank. he reiterated u.s. support for a two state solution and said the time wasn't right to try to restart the peace process with the israelis. israel's military says at least two rockets were fired from gaza over the southern city of ashlock. this video shows one of the rockets was was intercepted by the israeli air defense system. the other hit an empty area. no entries have been reported. sri lanka's prime minister has been sworn in as acting president after a resignation. he's promised to restore law and order and establish a unity government. the u.n. secure to counsel has passed a resolution urging all countries to ban small arms
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deliveries to haiti. gang violence is soaring. at least 89 people were killed during gang violence in the capital of port-au-prince this week. those are the headlines. the news continues on al jazeera right after inside story. ♪ >> the hunt has begun for other habitable planets. the first images from the james webb space telescope have been released. they are the most detailed and comprehensive view of the solar system we've ever seen. how will that change our understanding of the universe? this is inside story. ♪
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hello and welcome to the program. we can see further depths of the universe than ever before. it's taken decades and hundreds of millions of dollars to invent and deploy the technology we needed to get a better look of the cosmos. why are scientists going to all this trouble? what are they hoping to achieve? we chat to our guests in a moment. first, will reynolds reports. >> five and norma's galaxies locked in a cosmic dance. billions of stars and planets, 300 million light-years from earth. this is one of the spectacular images taken by the web space telescope, unveiled for the first time. >> what you are seeing is just a weeks worth of data. think what we are going to learn in 20 years.
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thank of the answers that we are going to get to the questions we don't even know enough to know what the questions are today. and in the process, we are going to learn more about who we are, what we are, what is our existence in this cosmos. we are looking back in time almost to the beginning. >> the image shows two galaxies colliding and merging with one another, impelled by the force of gravity. one of the galaxies features a bright spot scientists have identified as an active black hole. the gas and dust lighting up as it spills into the gravitational event horizon. this image shows estella nervously -- nursery with new stars being born at the edge of a vast region of gas and dust. this nebula is part of our own
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milky way galaxy. the level of detail showing structures and bubbles in the and norma's cloud is finer than any other telescope is capable of. this image shows a dying binary star surrounded by superheated hydrogen gas and other materials spun off from the stars core. elements which will reform into other stars, planets, and perhaps in time living things. webb is a joint project of nasa and zero p and then in canadian space agencies. it took more than 20 years to build and cost $10 billion. the most sophisticated space telescope ever made and makes observations in the infrared spectrum. scientists were odd by the first images. >> people and a broken world managing to do something right and see the majesty that's out there.
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>> the incomprehensible vastness of face in time. a deep look at his single area teeming with galaxies and stars. the light seen here originated 13 billion years ago, less than a billion years after the big bang. scientists promise many more discoveries are ahead, adding immeasurably to our understanding of the universe that we are a part of. bob reynolds, al jazeera. ♪ >> let's bring in our guests. a senior research fellow at university college london. in baltimore, an astronomer at the space telescope science institute in one of the scientist who selected the images which you've seen. in boston, a theoretical physicist and professor of science at harvard university. welcome to you all. thank you for joining us.
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we had a little bit of an introduction about what james webb is designed to do. tell us more about why it's described as a time machine. >> it is a time machine. everything is a time machine. we are always looking at the past. the screen in front of me, i see it as it was a couple nanoseconds ago. looking deep into space, we are talking not hours, days, years, not even millions. thousands of millions of years in the past when the light from these distant objects, that we see especially in the first image that was released, left some of those objects more than 13,000 years ago. it's fascinating that we are looking into a time machine in the past. >> we will go the images in a moment. why is this a game changer?
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>> it's a game changer because it represents what is the capability of this marvelous piece of engineering that james webb is. we selected images that represent a broad range of sciences that correspond to the four pillars in astronomy that james webb wanted to address, from the very unit -- early universe to the status of exoplanets and planets in our own solar systems. what we are seeing in these images is a promise, the hope that we will be able to address many of the hot topics that are haunting us since we have been conscious of who we are. are we alone in the universe? how did it all start? >> it's not often that we have
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three guests beaming with enthusiasm at what's happening. how close are we getting to the origins of our universe with this telescope? >> we think that the first stars from around 100 million years after the big bang, before that, the universe didn't have much structure and it. we can look back in time and figure out our cosmic roots. there are questions about where we came from already in the first chapter of the old testament. let there be light. with the web telescope, we could find the first light from the first galaxies and stars. the second fundamental question is, when was life created in the universe? how abundant is it around us? the web telescope can look at exoplanets, look at the nurseries of those planets and inform us about the likelihood
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of finding life out there. >> is relying on ultraviolet light, why is it relying on ultraviolet light? >> it focuses on infrared which is not visible to the human eye. stars like the sun and made visual light. that's why we have eyes that are sensitive to visible light. however, as a result of the expansion of the universe, the wavelength of the light gets stretched by the cosmic expansion by a factor of 10 to 50 for the earliest stars. as a result, the wavelength goes into the infrared band. that's where the ret -- web telescope operates. i was on the first advisory committee that designed this telescope. the goal was to be sensitive to the light coming from the first stars. the first stars are quite
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different than the sun. they were more massive. they admitted primarily ultraviolet light. >> i wanted to ask you, the cam that took these images, it uses something called core and auger fee. help us understand what that is. >> these images aren't using that. that's an instrument that stimulates a solar eclipse. when you have a solar eclipse, you can see the corona which is the outer part of the atmosphere of the sun. designing an instrument that's able to do that optically, you can block the light of the start and produce an artificial star a clips so you can see the corona of the star, any kind of material that's forming in a new solar system. that's the to nick. none of these images so far have
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been produced by that technique. >> you were involved in selecting these pictures. we are going to have a look at them now. the first one is this one called webb deep field. understand -- help us understand what we are seeing here. >> all the blobs here are galaxies. the only stars that we can see in this image are those that show this pattern that looks like a snowflake. those are nearby stars. the oldest one that we've seen, it's like when the universe was about one billion years old. when the universe was very young. probably one of these is the
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farthest away that we've seen. we just need to wait to analyze the spectrum. that means we break the light that comes from these objects into their wavelengths, different colors. we can see the fingerprints of different types of atoms. we can learn about the composition of these very early galaxies. during the evolution of the universe, how these galaxies and stars contributed to the chemical composition that we have in our bodies. they were not formed at the beginning. they resulted from the nuclear processes that happen in the stars. so it's a wonderful machine to he how these elements appear in the universe and how these galaxies evolve from very early
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ones to the ones we have in our local universe. >> this southern ring nebula, i've seen it described as a stellar graveyard. what is that showing us? >> when a star dies, some of the mass of the star gets expelled. that's what will happen to the sun. it will eventually use up all the nuclear fuel that it has and will not be able to burn. a star is simply a nuclear reactor held by gravity. in the end, the star will cool off. it will send out some material to the so-called interstellar medium. that creates these beautiful silhouettes that we see here, where the interaction of these materials with the surrounding medium creates this beautiful ring. that's the future of our local neighborhood. i would like to emphasize also that, in the image that was described before, we tend to
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keep our eyes on starlight, those islands that are bright. there's a lot of darkness in between them. the reason i emphasize that is, actually what we see is just the tale of the dog. gravity is dominated by dark matter which makes up these dark regions between the galaxies and we still don't know what most of the matter in the universe is. in a way, the message is that we should explore the unknown. our knowledge is an island in an ocean of ignorance. >> very quickly on dark matter. this is like a theoretically influential cosmic scaffolding. do you think it might be able to uncover the mystery of dark matter for us? >> well, webb is just looking at light. so that informs us about properties of the dark matter.
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we can find the nature of the dark matter either by detecting it through laboratory experiments, like the large hadron collider was trying to smash particles and generate some dark matter. unfortunately, we didn't. another approach is to see some signatures of dark matter in the light, that will reveal its identity. i don't think the webb has a better chance to do that. it will definitely inform us much more about the early universe. the very first galaxies that formed tell us something about dark matter, yes. >> we have to look at what -- this is capturing the signature of water around the planet. his webb going to help us look for worlds like earth could support life? this is what a lot of people are fascinated by. >> yes. i mean the space telescope can
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detect the fingerprints as we've said before, the fingerprints of chemical evidence in the atmosphere of these planets. so the presence of water in the atmosphere of a planet is a very good condition that we need to have life on a planet. the holy grail of astrobiology will be to decked not only water but free molecular oxygen in the atmosphere. that would be the signature of bio processes, especially photosynthesis. so far, molecular oxygen hasn't been detected. the james webb might be able to do that. that would be a major thing. my institution is going to examine the atmosphere. that's the plan.
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hard work in the future. >> steffens quintet. 1000 separate images. i've seen this described as galaxies locked in a cosmic dance. go with me on that one. >> this is a mesmerizing dance of destruction and creation at the same time. this arc that you see between the galaxies is really pockets of star formation th has been triggered by this intertion. this is relatively nearby. in the early universe, interacting galaxies were very common. this is how galaxies grew. starting this type of interaction can help us learn how galaxies change from the very early universe and how they compare to the ones that we see today. >> the cosmic cliffs in this
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nebula. looks like mountains. this is the most arresting image. what have we got there? >> i have to say, i had the honor to present this image at the event that we had at the sciences space telescope. this is just amazing. what we see here that looks like a starry night, this is really the edge of the nebula where countless stars and planets are being born. the high mass stars that are the hottest and have very strong stellar winds have already formed at the top of the image. they are basically eroding little by little the nebula. we can see a missed that is lifting. this is really hot gas that is being evaporated from the nebula. all this destruction is happening at the same time that countless stars and planets are born. you can see, in these pillars,
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areas that are more dense and are resisting erosion. because they are more dense and affected by regulation, that makes the region collapse. we can see outflows coming from stars that are in the process of creation. these images not only are beautiful but it's also full of new beginnings. >> over the next six months, we will see the reserves -- results of studies from nasa's early release science programs. this is only the start. what else are we to expect? >> we can get a much deeper image of the universe. the first one was half a day in terms of looking deep into the sky. i'm sure that it already contains new information because the telescope has 7.3 times the area of the hubble tapes scott -- space telescope. the fundamental thing we need to keep in mind is that nature is
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much more imaginative than we are. therefore, we have to look. just by looking, we will discover new things. there's no doubt in my mind that the most exciting discoveries are yet to come. we can't even imagine at this point. even the deep field of the hubble tape -- space telescope wasn't conceived when the telescope was constructed. nobody thought it would be that way. let's just stay tuned and be humble. a sense of cosmic modesty is in place because the universe surprises us very often. let's just look and enjoy the show. >> several of the studies are devoted to exoplanets. why is this generating so much interest? >> it is so important. it has planted twits are very similar to the earth. they are also what is called the goldilocks zone.
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you can have liquid water on the surface of a planet where the temperature is such that it's not too close or far away. the water can't remain in liquid state on the surface of the planet. this is why the system is so important. >> what's next? how long can we hope the telescope will send us pictures for? >> it was designed to last a minimum of five years. unexpected life of 10 years. the launch was so efficient that a lot of fuel was conserved. the expectation is that the telescope will last for two decades. there's plenty of room for the unexpected. these discoveries many times trigger knowledge. >> seemed to be a flawless launch. what are the risks to the telescope while it's in orbit?
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>> micro meteorites. we just keep our fingers crossed that not too many will hit the telescope during its lifetime. obviously, that will be the biggest risk for degrading the optical capabilities of the telescope. these tiny mike -- tiny micro meteorites that create a small crater on the surface. the primary mirror is made of beryllium coated with gold. we want to keep it as clean as possible without much damage. i should mention one more thing. we focused on the most distant sources of light in the universe. i should say that also the nearest ones are quite exciting. that is a subject that we hold very dear to our hearts. there's a chance of interstellar objects that enter the solar
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system. the web telescope is a million miles away from hers. if we look at the nearby object, we would see it from different directions, allowing us to pin down the three-dimensional trajectory of the object to an extreme position. never before did we have a telescope so far away from earth that allows us to triangulate the location of interesting objects like those that come from outside the solar system. >> are you surprised there is much left to be discovered? >> i think when we are talking about science in general, there's always new to be discovered. we don't know it's going to come. we know it's going to be fantastic. these machines, they are really expanding our knowledge of the universe in microscopic ways and macroscopic ways. the discoveries are going to be amazing. we know how the universe works. for example, this thing about
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dark matter which is a major thing. this is what we call dark energy. you see the first image that was published by nasa. uc a lot of concentric structures around this cluster of galaxies which is relatively close by. in the far distance, there are many more galaxies that are distorted by the gravity. the distortion of light is making these distortions. because of the mass of the galaxies but because of the mass of the dark matter which is around these galaxies as well. who knows? we are going to discover amazing things. a new generation of astronomers are going to have a very challenging but very rewarding time. >> very quickly about those new generations of astronomers. how much feedback have you had from the young people who will be making these discoveries in the future? how important is this? >> i think this is very
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important. what we have learned from hubble is that the images that it has produced are part of our subconscious. it's how we imagine the universe. i think with its at six -- extort mary capabilities, it's going to be part of our subconscious again. it's going to even increase this imagery. more colors, information, going deeper in the universe. i think astronomy is such a great hook for the young generations to be attracted to. science, mathematics. i think that's one of the most valuable things that we can contribute to. >> are 30 minutes has gone by faster than the speed of light. thanks to our stellar guests.
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