Scientists have released the first long-awaited, full-color, scientific images taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful such instrument ever built. The colossal telescope orbits about 1 million miles from Earth and is positioned to look at some of the first galaxies and stars ever born. Looking at these objects means looking back in time billions of years, because it takes that long for this ancient light to reach us (or more accurately, to reach the $10 billion Webb Telescope). This first batch of unprecedented images includes views of some of the most distant galaxies, a giant nursery of stars and colossal cosmic clouds. It also provides unparalleled insight into a giant planet beyond our solar system. (Memes aren’t bad, either.) “Today the Webb mission is open for business,” NASA astronomer Michelle Thaler said at the image unveiling Tuesday morning. “And this is just the beginning. The best is yet to come…” SEE ALSO: What the giant James Webb telescope will see that Hubble can’t The Webb Telescope is the successor to the legendary Hubble Space Telescope, which has captured unprecedented stellar views for over three decades. But the Webb telescope, with a golden mirror two and a half times larger than Hubble’s, has the ability to see much fainter objects and will peer through impenetrable clouds of thick cosmic dust. Check out five of the most anticipated space pictures of all time.
SMACS 0723
Webb spied an “extremely distant” population of galaxies in this image. Galaxies in the foreground distort the light and help magnify these distant objects. Light from these galaxies has been traveling for billions of years, explained NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. Specifically, you’re looking at the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared about 4.6 billion years ago. Behind it, however, are more ancient galaxies. “This first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as the Webb First Deep Field, this image of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is bursting with detail,” explained NASA in a statement. “Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever seen in the infrared – appeared for the first time in Webb’s view. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky about the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length on the ground.” NASA calls this image “Webb’s First Deep Field.” It is an image of the galaxy cluster “SMACS 0723”. The mass of galaxies distorts and magnifies the most distant galaxies in the background. Credit: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
Exoplanet spectrum from WASP-96 b
Some of the Webb Telescope’s most amazing observations don’t come from pretty pictures. Using instruments called spectrometers, Webb can find out what the atmospheres of distant, alien worlds are made of. (There are perhaps a trillion or more exoplanets in our Milky Way galaxy alone.) Some planets, for example, may contain water, methane, and carbon dioxide, which could potentially mean they are habitable worlds. Webb’s first gas spectrum of an exoplanet comes from WASP-96 b, known as “hot Jupiter.” It is a high-temperature gas giant that zooms around its star at enormous speeds, requiring just 3.4 days for a single orbit. “NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the distinct signature of water, along with evidence of clouds and haze, in the atmosphere surrounding a hot, gas-bloated giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star,” he explained. NASA. “The observation, which reveals the presence of specific gas molecules based on tiny decreases in the brightness of precise colors of light, is the most detailed of its kind to date, demonstrating Webb’s unprecedented ability to analyze atmospheres hundreds of light-years away.” . Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI
The Southern Ring Nebula
The Southern Ring Nebula is a type of object called a ‘planetary nebula’. These are living shells of gas and dust ejected into space by a dying star. This well-known planetary nebula is about 2,000 light-years away from us. “Some stars save the best for last,” NASA wrote. “The faintest star at the center of this scene has been sending out rings of gas and dust for thousands of years in all directions, and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed for the first time that this star is covered in dust.” Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI SEE ALSO: The powerful Webb telescope found water in the clouds of this alien planet
Stephan’s Quintet
The Stefan quintet is a well-known group of galaxies about 290 million light-years away. Four of them are relatively close to each other, “locked in a cosmic dance of repeated close encounters,” NASA said. “With its powerful infrared vision and extremely high spatial resolution, Webb shows never-before-seen detail in this group of galaxies,” NASA explained. “Foamy clusters of millions of young stars and starburst regions of fresh star births adorn the image. Sweeping tails of gas, dust and stars are pulled from many of the galaxies by gravitational interactions.” Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI
The Carina Nebula
Nebulae are some of the most dazzling regions of space. They are giant clouds of dust and gas, like those formed after the explosion of a giant star. It is fertile ground for new stars to form. Webb captured a view of the Carina Colossal Nebula, located about 7,600 light-years away, a place where large stars have already formed. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA and STScI “This landscape of ‘mountains’ and ‘valleys’ dotted with twinkling stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula,” NASA wrote. “Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals unseen regions of star birth for the first time.” The tallest “peaks” you see here are about seven light-years high, the space agency added.
The deep space observatory
The Webb Telescope – a collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency – is designed to make unprecedented discoveries. “With this telescope, it’s really hard not to break records,” Thomas Zurbuchen, an astrophysicist and NASA associate for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate, told a news conference recently. Engineers in a clean room pose in front of the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn Here’s how Webb will achieve unparalleled things:
Giant mirror: Webb’s mirror, which captures the light, is over 21 feet in diameter. That’s more than two and a half times the size of the Hubble Space Telescope’s mirror. Capturing more light allows Webb to see more distant, ancient objects. The telescope will look at stars and galaxies that formed more than 13 billion years ago, just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. “We’re going to see the first stars and galaxies that ever formed,” Jean Creighton, astronomer and director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, told Mashable last year.
Infrared view: Unlike Hubble, which largely sees light visible to us, Webb is primarily an infrared telescope, meaning it sees light in the infrared spectrum. This allows us to see much more of the universe. Infrared has longer wavelengths than visible light, so light waves slip more efficiently through cosmic clouds. light does not collide as often and is not scattered by these densely packed particles. Ultimately, Webb’s infrared vision can penetrate places Hubble cannot. “It lifts the veil,” Creighton said. Looking at distant exoplanets: The Webb Telescope it carries specialized equipment, called spectrometers, which will revolutionize our understanding of these distant worlds. The instruments can decipher which molecules (such as water, carbon dioxide and methane) are present in the atmospheres of distant exoplanets – whether they are gas giants or smaller rocky worlds. Webb will examine exoplanets in the Milky Way galaxy. Who knows what we’ll find. “We might learn things we never thought of,” Mercedes López-Morales, an exoplanet researcher and astrophysicist at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Mashable in 2021.
“We’re going to see the first stars and galaxies that ever formed,” Jean Creighton, astronomer and director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, told Mashable last year. “It lifts the veil,” Creighton said. “We might learn things we never thought of,” Mercedes López-Morales, an exoplanet researcher and astrophysicist at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, told Mashable in 2021.
