A new era in astronomy has begun after years of planning and months in the sky. The first science image from the world's most powerful space telescope shows the universe in a depth never seen before
The vice president said that humans have looked up to the night sky with wonder. We are entering a new phase of discovery. The James Webb Space Telescope allows us to see deeper into space than before and in stunning clarity. NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency contributed to the construction of the telescope.
The farthest image of the distant universe to date is shown in the image. The mass of the cluster is so great that it bends space time and allows us to see even more distant galaxies behind it. As they are so far away, the light is very faint, and these thousands of galaxies are among the faintest objects ever observed in IR.
Unlike telescopes like Hubble which only look in the visible light range, the instruments of the Webb telescope look in theIR. This will allow the telescope to look through opaque targets like clouds of dust to see what lies beneath.
The time it takes for light to travel from these great distances to Earth is similar to looking back in time. The Epoch of Reionization is when the first stars in the universe spread light through the universe for the first time.
In the quest to find the earliest galaxies, deep field images like the one shown above can be used. Similar images will be produced by deep and wide surveys used in the upcomingCOSMOS-Webb program.
The image released today is just a small sample of what will come from the man. A spectrum showing the composition of the atmosphere of an exoplanet will be released tomorrow. How stars are formed, the composition of comets in our solar system, and how the first black holes formed are just some of the topics that will be studied by the telescope in its first year.
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