James Webb: Nasa space telescope delivers spectacular pictures

NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

The new $10 billion space telescope has acquired stunning images of a "stellar nursery" and a "cosmic dance".

The successor to the famous Hubble telescope is showing off its first full-color pictures of the universe.

A photo depicting very far-off galaxies was released by the US President on Monday.

The scientists on the project are following up with more images.

• Follow live as the new pictures are released

The sky can be seen in theIR with the help of the new observatory.

It will be able to look deeper into the Universe and detect events that happened more than 13 billion years ago.

Astronomers hope to find signs of life on distant planets by using advanced technologies.

The initial images are just a glimpse of what's to come, according to the British researcher who co-led one of the instruments.

The director of the UK Astronomy Technology Centre said that when he looked at the sky in a new way, he saw things that he didn't think were possible.

It's telling you that the discoveries are just sitting out there waiting to be made because the new data are so good that they've been obtained in just a few hours of observations.

There is a large group of galaxies. The light of objects far away is magnified by the mass of the cluster. Everywhere you look, there is a red arcs-like structure that is way off in the distance. Over 13 billion years have passed since the light in those arcs reached us. Some of the arcs on either side of the picture are actually the same object. The light has been bent on multiple paths.

NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

There are versions of this in the coffee table books. The Southern Ring is a huge sphere of gas and dust that has been lit up by a dying star. Stars change the way they make energy as they get older. When the star gets hot again, it creates a lot of new material. The Southern Ring is roughly half a light-year in diameter. This type of structure is referred to as aplanetary nebula, but it has nothing to do with planets. When telescopes didn't have anything like the resolution they have today, it's a misconception. It wants to know how stars are born and how they die.

Stephan's quintet is located in the constellation. The first compact galaxy group was discovered. There are four of the five galaxies locked in a dance. At first glance, this image doesn't look different from the Hubble version, but the new telescope's sensitivity will show different features for researchers. The hope was that we would be able to work together. Being able to compare and contrast will give scientists a new way to look at their work. We don't know how long Hubble will stay open. It is 32 years old and prone to technical problems. The budget plan for the next five years has just been submitted by the officials at NASA. Don't give up, keep your eyes open.

NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

We get a very different rendering of the Carina Nebula in this version of the telescope, compared to the Hubble version. Located roughly 7,600 light-years away from Earth, Carina is one of the largest and most bright stars in the sky. The stellar nursery is made up of meteorites. There are huge clouds of gas and dust in the sky. Our eyes are drawn to the gas and the dust even though we only see the stars. Astronomers refer to this as a "cosmic reef", which is a kind of broad demarcation between dust and gas in the bottom half. One of the main goals of the scientists is to study how stars form.

The first images from the space telescope are awe-inspiring. Take a moment to look at them, and you'll see that they contain trillions of stars.

There is a lot of information in each picture. This treasure trove comes from only a few days of observations, and so far the telescope only looked at a small portion of the sky. For the next 20 years, he will be taking pictures of the universe.

From seeing the first stars to finding planets outside our Solar System, there's a check list of discoveries that astronomer want to tick off.

The discoveries they haven't dreamed of are the most exciting.

In the UK, a special programme on the Super Telescope: Mission to the Edge of the Universe can be seen on Thursday on the iPlayer.