The James Webb Space Telescope, a $10 billion US joint venture of NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency, has snapped five images that chart humanity’s journey through cosmic history – from gas planets to giant nebulae. The first image shows the most distant ever seen by mankind in both time and distance, with the remaining four images released on Tuesday by NASA. It’s here—the deepest, sharpest infrared view of the universe yet: Webb’s first deep field. Previewed by pic.twitter.com/zAr7YoFZ8C —@NASA The “deep field” image released at a White House event is packed with lots of stars, with massive galaxies in the foreground and faint and extremely distant galaxies peeking out here and there. Part of the picture is light from not long after the Big Bang, which took place 13.8 billion years ago. The scene captured shows a tiny piece of sky about the size of a grain of sand, held at arm’s length by someone on the ground, according to NASA’s website. Seconds before unveiling it, Biden marveled at the image he said showed “the oldest documented light in the history of the universe from over 13 billion — let me say that again — 13 billion years ago. It’s hard to understand.” The crowded image of hundreds of spots, streaks, spirals and swirls of white, yellow, orange and red is just “a tiny speck of the universe,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The telescope, which was launched last December, is located 1.6 million kilometers from Earth and is considered the successor to the aging Hubble Space Telescope. While Hubble has been able to see distant galaxies, it lacks the resolution of Webb, which is optimized to see in the longer infrared wavelengths, giving it much greater clarity and sensitivity. The images it produces will be much sharper, revealing much more detail.
