NASA delivers deepest infrared image of the universe from new James Webb space telescope

Written by Jamie Epstein & Eric Revell, Countable News

What's the story?

• President Joe Biden released the first image from the James Webb Space Telescope of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 during a White House event on Monday. NASA’s photo covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held out at arm’s length: 

Photo Credit: “Webb’s First Deep Field,” James Webb Space Telescope, National Aeronautics and Space Administration

• The image, known as Webb’s First Deep Field, reveals thousands of galaxies in a small sliver of the universe. The field shows faint structures in distant galaxies, offering a view of the early universe, approximately the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 4.6 billion years ago. 
• Webb’s near-infrared camera brought distant galaxies into focus, allowing astronomers to study their tiny, faint structures, which have never been seen before, in addition to star clusters, diffuse features, bent light rays from distant galaxies, and a kaleidoscope of colors where dust is. 
• The image shows various types of galaxies as well, including blue galaxies which contain stars and little dust, and green galaxies with hydrocarbons and various chemical compounds. 
• The image is a composite made from photos taken at different wavelengths, 12.5 hours of exposure in total, to achieve the depth of infrared light. This is beyond what the Hubble Space Telescope was capable of. 
• Researchers will continue to use Webb to take longer exposures, revealing even more of the universe. The galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions will soon be studied. 

What is the James Webb Telescope? 

• The James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been in service since 1990. It can observe objects in space that are too old and distant for Hubble, such as the SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster, or even the first galaxies to be formed in the universe using infrared technologies. The telescope can also characterize the atmosphere of potentially habitable planets. 
• Unlike the Hubble Space Telescope, which is now in low Earth orbit at an altitude of 340 miles, the James Webb Space Telescope does not actually orbit Earth, but the Sun, 1 million miles away from Earth. That distance and the telescope’s solar shield allow it to stay cool enough for the infrared telescope to function properly. 
• Named for James E. Webb, who was the administrator of NASA during the Apollo program, the JWST has been developed as a collaboration between NASA, ESA, and CSA since 1996 and has a lifecycle cost of roughly $10 billion. 

How do you feel about the first image from the James Webb Space Telescope?