An astrophysicist from Wicklow has revealed how he helped to design the largest and most powerful telescope ever sent into space, which this week has captured phenomenal photographs of galaxies far beyond our own.
NASA's release of images from the James Webb Space Telescope has delighted scientist around the world, including the team from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS) which played an important role in designing the new telescope. The team from Ireland was led by Dr Tom Ray and Dr Paddy Kavanagh, and they contributed to the design and fabrication of one of four science instruments on the Webb - the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
Dr Kavanagh is an astrophysicist and a software developer, and his work involves analysing and interpreting the data collected by the Webb Telescope. Speaking to Dublin Live this week, Dr Kavanagh explained how the new photographs mark an important milestone in the exploration of space.
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Dr Kavanagh is originally from Arklow in Co Wicklow, and he has worked on the James Webb Space Telescope for six-and-a-half years. He said: "I did my undergraduate at DIT and my phD in Dublin City University, I've always been interested in astronomy from a young age and I decided to take a crack at it in university. It can be very hard work at times, yet so rewarding like this week now that the photos have been made public.
"I've worked on the James Webb Telescope for about six and a half years even throughout the pandemic with the European team, NASA, the European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency. We were involved in the development of the infrared instrument, we were used to talking to each other through video during the pandemic and then we only all met up for the first time to commission it at the Webb Mission Operations Center in Baltimore in the US."
According to Dr Kavanagh, the new telescope uses improved infrared technology to observe the universe, which allows it to see through dust and gas in ways other telescopes, like the Hubble, cannot. MIRI is a camera and a spectrograph that observes mid to long infrared radiation, it also has a coronagraph which is a specialised instrument designed to block out the light of a star, allowing scientists to study the universe with an unprecedented level of detail.
Dr Kavanagh said that he was very pleased with how the photographs turned out. "The photographs are amazing, each one is at a different angle to show star formation. The deep field is stunning, there's a lot of planets in the background and water vapor and cloud in the Carina Nebula region.
"My favourite photo is of the Cosmic Cliffs, you can actually see into the dust and gas vapor to see the forming stars."
The mountains and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, the image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.
Called the Cosmic Cliffs, Webb’s seemingly three-dimensional picture looks like craggy mountains on a moonlit evening. In reality, it is the edge of the giant, gaseous cavity within NGC 3324, and the tallest “peaks” in this image are about 7 light-years high.
Over the course of its 10-year mission, the James Webb Space Telescope will collect more light than any previous telescope, looking deeper into space to see the earliest stars, planets and galaxies in the universe, and study how they were formed.
According to Dr Kavanagh, for the next few years he will observe stars forming in our galaxy and interpret the data through the new telescope. He is also hoping to return home to Ireland after several months spent working on the telescope in Baltimore.
When asked about what advice he would give to young budding astrophysicists, Dr Kavanagh said: "I think a lot of young people are interested in astrophysics, and it is possible to do it in Ireland.
"When I was young, I had no idea we even had a team in Ireland. I would say do physics and astronomy in school, because you never know how far you'll go."
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