Images from the sun-orbiting instrument have brought delight – and no end of relief – to researchers who have waited decades for the work to come to fruition and begin its mission to transform our view of the universe. The galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb’s First Deep Field, in a composite made up of images at different wavelengths taken with a near-infrared camera. Photo: NASA/Reuters After releasing the first image at a White House briefing on Monday, the US space agency released further photos from the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland on Tuesday amid cheers and howls of approval. The images provide a tantalizing glimpse of the observatory’s potential to look back to the dawn of time, probe the deep structure of the universe and enable the study of atmospheres wrapped around planets far beyond the solar system. “I’m so excited and so relieved,” said Dr John Mather, Nasa’s senior project scientist on the mission. “It was so hard and it took so long. It’s impossible to convey how difficult it really was… but we did it.” Dr. Bill Ochs, Webb’s project manager, said the telescope was in “excellent shape” and met or exceeded its science requirements. The “deep-field” image released Monday showed Webb’s ability to harness the gravitational forces of galaxy clusters to magnify much more distant galaxies behind them. The image of the SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster, nearly 5 billion light-years away, brought the galaxies into focus as they were more than 13 billion years ago. 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. Photo: NASA/Getty Images Analysis of the light from one of the galaxies revealed its chemical composition, a first for such a distant galaxy. “We’re seeing these galaxies in detail that we’ve never been able to see before,” said Dr. Jane Rigby, an operational program scientist at Webb. In the second image, Webb analyzed starlight as it passed through the atmosphere of a hot Jupiter-like planet called Wasp-96b, about 1,150 light-years away. This revealed the presence of water vapor, although the planet is too hot to host liquid water. Astronomers will use the same approach on smaller, rocky planets in hopes of finding worlds where conditions are ripe for life. A side-by-side comparison of observations of the Southern Ring Nebula – in near-infrared light (left) and mid-infrared light (right). Photo: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/AP Further images captured the Southern Ring Nebula, a huge cloud of gas being ejected from a dying star about 2,000 light-years from Earth. An unexpected streak in the image caused grief for some on the Nasa team. On closer inspection it was found to be another galaxy, seen off to the side. Perhaps most exciting was the discovery in an image of Stefan’s Quintet, a tight cluster of five galaxies, of an active black hole. While the black hole itself is not visible, there is material swirling around it that is being swallowed by the cosmic monster. Stephan’s Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies. Photo: NASA/Getty Images The final image, of a breathtaking stellar nursery called the Carina Nebula, is so rich in detail that researchers could make out bubbles, pits and jets from newborn stars, along with hundreds of other stars never seen before . “We’re seeing structures we don’t even know what they are,” said Dr Amber Straughn, a Nasa astrophysicist. The collection of deep-space images marks the official start of scientific operations for Webb, which faced long delays and cost overruns before reaching the launch site. Since its December blast, scientists have endured six months as the observatory unfolded, deployed a tennis court-sized sunshade and aligned its 18 gold-plated mirrors en route to its destination 1 meter miles from Earth. A 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. Photo: NASA/Getty Images “The unprecedented detail and resolution of the images will transform astronomy and provide a much deeper understanding of the universe than we have today,” said Martin Barstow, professor of astrophysics and space science at the University of Leicester. Developed in collaboration with the European and Canadian space agencies, Webb uses a 6.5-meter primary mirror to detect the faint glow of some of the world’s oldest and most distant stars. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every day at 7am. BST Because the universe is expanding, light from distant objects is stretched, “shifting” it to longer wavelengths. When visible light is stretched into the infrared, it can be detected by Webb’s instruments, which are three times sharper and 100 times more sensitive than those on Hubble. “The performance is outstanding,” said Professor Gillian Wright, director of the UK Astronomy Technology Center in Edinburgh and principal investigator for the Mid-Infrared Instrument (Miri) at Webb. “We’ll be able to do all the science we want to do and more. When we talked about being able to directly image planets around other stars, we know we can do that now. “The job now is to choose which stars to look at and which planets to take pictures of, not whether or not the telescope is capable of doing it. It is more than capable of doing this kind of science, extremely well.”
