NASA has released the amazing first image from the James Webb Space Telescope.
This image is the first in a series to be released this Week. It’s the deepest, sharpest infrared picture of the distant universe.
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On Monday, President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris (chair of the National Space Council), were present for the big reveal.
“This first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date,”Nasa said about the image.
“Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail.
“Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time.”
Nasa stated that the universe’s vastness covers an area of a “patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.”
The agency said capturing the image was all in a day’s work for the Webb telescope as capturing it took less than a day.
The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Christmas Day 2021.
It spent seven months at 1,000,000 miles away from Earth, unfolding the sunshield and calibrating the technology onboard.
Its purpose is to reveal the darkest corners of the universe by looking at the faint light from early stars and galaxies that were created after the Big Bang, which took place approximately 250 million years ago.
On this page were the first images taken by James Webb. Nasa TVDuring a speech by President Biden, and on Nasa’s socials
Additional images will be released Tuesday morning at 10.30am, during a joint event with Nasa, ESA and CSA in Maryland.
“Released one by one, the first images from the world’s largest and most powerful space telescope will demonstrate Webb at its full power, ready to begin its mission to unfold the infrared universe,” Nasa said.
A few engineers had a chance to look at the images this week.
“What I have seen moved me, as a scientist, as an engineer, and as a human being,” Nasa deputy administrator Pam Melroy said.
Many fans were excited to have different theories about what James Webb was taking photos of.
“I know it’s fantastically and arguably, uh, a bit terrifying, but it would be incredible if the JWST could find some alien mega-structures,”One Twitter user Submitted.
“Imagine they release the JWST images and there’s f***in massive aliens inside the nebulas thatd be so cool,”Another user Additional.
The James Webb Space Telescope is angled to photograph the Carina and Southern Ring Nebulae. This includes a gaseous exoplanet and a cluster of galaxies.
Hank Green is an author and a trusted science vlogger. TelledHis 1.2 million Twitter followers “the promise of Webb has always been to see farther away (and thus farther back in time) than we have ever seen.”
The Webb images are glimpses into the future – light from deep space has traveled over light-years to reach the James Webb’s lens.
The same principle applies to the Sun – light from the Sun takes a bit more than eight minutes to reach Earth.
This was over 30 years ago President George HW BushA speech praising a new era in space exploration led to the development and launch of the Hubble Space Telescope.
Today, President Biden has turned a page to a more promising age in space exploration and imaging.
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