NASA Releases First-Ever Webb Telescope Images Showing Galaxies Over 13 Billion Light-Years Away
Yesterday, President Biden unveiled the first image to ever be released from the James Webb Space Telescope during a White House event.
The Webb telescope, which cost ten billion dollars and was launched from Earth back in December, is the most powerful and sophisticated device ever to be launched.
“Webb was built to find the first generation of galaxies that formed after the big bang. That is the core science goal it was built to do,” explained Jane Rigby, an operations project scientist at NASA.
In fact, the galaxies that Webb has detected and photographed are over 13 billion light-years away– allowing scientists to get a glimpse of the past in hopes of understanding more about the creation of our universe.
The remarkable image that President Biden unveiled has since been shared on NASA’s Instagram.
“If you held a grain of sand to the sky at arm’s length, that speck is the size of Webb’s view here. Imagine– galaxies galore within a grain!” NASA captioned the image.
And just this morning, numerous other images captured by the Webb telescope have also been released on the NASA Instagram account.
Southern Ring Planetary Nebula & Its Pair Of Stars
“The Southern Ring nebula is called a planetary nebula. Despite ‘planet’ in the name– which comes from how these objects first appeared to astronomers observing them hundreds of years ago– these are shells of dust and gas shed by dying Sun-like stars,” NASA explained.
This image, in particular. is believed to “transform” how scientists understand the evolution of stars and how they impact the environment.
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This surreal image shows five galaxies almost swirling together in the sky.
“These colliding galaxies are pulling and stretching each other in a gravitational dance. Webb will revolutionize our knowledge of star formation and gas interactions within,” NASA wrote.
This photo of Stephan’s Quintet is also the largest Webb image to date– containing over 150 million pixels and constructed by over one thousand image files.
The “grand finale” of the Webb first image series features the Cosmic Cliffs.
“Behind the curtain of dust and gas are previously hidden baby stars, now uncovered by the Webb telescope,” NASA said.
“Webb’s new view gives us a rare peek into stars’ earliest and most rapid stages of formation. For an individual star, this period only lasts about fifty to one hundred thousand years,” NASA continued.
NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI; pictured above are the Cosmic Cliffs
To view all of the released images captured by the Webb telescope, you can visit NASA’s Instagram account linked here.
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