President Joe Biden made the announcement Monday First picture of James Webb Space Telescope NASA considers it the deepest view of the universe ever captured.
First image taken by the mighty Webb Space Telescope $10 billion in spending It shows the distant view that humanity has observed near the dawn of the universe and at a time and distance known as the edge of the universe.
This image will be followed by four snapshots released by NASA on Tuesday.
The image shown by Biden shows “deep field.” The shot is full of stars, with massive galaxies in the foreground refracting light from objects behind.
Waiting for the pictures
The images released on Tuesday include a glimpse A gas giant planet Just outside our solar system, two images of a nebula where stars are born and die in spectacular beauty, and an update on the classic image of five tightly packed galaxies dancing around each other.
The space telescope was launched last December from French Guiana in South America. He achieved his vision 1 million miles (1.6 million km) from Earth in January
Then began the long process of aligning the mirrors, cooling them enough to operate the infrared detectors, and calibrating the science instruments, all protected by a tennis court-sized umbrella that kept the telescope cool.
The plan is to look back, using telescopes long enough for scientists to catch a glimpse of the dawn of the universe a few years ago. 13.7 billion years and magnify the closest cosmic objects, even our own solar system, into sharp focus.
Webb is considered the successor to the highly successful but aging Hubble Space Telescope. Hubble saw 13.4 billion years ago2016 detected the light wave signature of a very bright galaxy.
Thomas Zurbussen, head of NASA’s science mission, said the new telescope “gives away many, many decades, centuries, thousands of years of secrets.”
