“There is light 13 billion years ago,” Thomas said. “It blows my mind.” Galaxy cluster SMACS-0273 is the first image revealed by NASA’s $10 billion telescope. “If you were to hold a grain of sand at arm’s length and hold it up to the sky, that’s the window we’re looking through,” Thomas said. “This is the pocket of the universe we’re seeing, and there’s a lot more universe to explore.” Thomas said the first images are just the beginning of what the telescope can reveal. “It gives us images that we might not have seen before, information that previously might have been scattered that we might not have seen,” Thomas said. “What we see are galaxies, stars, planets, nebula, space dust,” Thomas said. “We see what’s out there.” Thomas says that by continuing to observe distant galaxies we could solve mysteries such as the origin of our universe and our place in it. He adds that we are trying to find possible planets that would be habitable for life and planets that could have life. NASA also released images of “Stephan’s Quintet,” a view of five closely grouped galaxies, a black hole, and the “Carina Nebula,” a photo of where stars are born. Thomas says the telescope also carries spectrometers, which help scientists study other planets like ‘WASP-96b’ a gas giant planet that showed water vapor in the atmosphere.
