Why the first Webb telescope image is so warped, twisted, and weird

There are strings of stretched taffy in the first image from the telescope.

Our view of the deep universe has changed because of the universe.

The James Webb Space Telescope was pointed at by an astronomer. The universe contains hundreds of billions of stars, millions of black holes, and trillions of planets. Like a bowling ball sitting on a mattress, the mass of these universes warps space.

We can see through the warped space. The light from the stars behind this cluster is not as bright as it could be. It's a type of lensing. The Space Telescope Science Institute says that it's like having a camera lens in between us.

Over a century ago, Albert Einstein predicted the effects of lensing. Some of the galaxies we can see below are stretched or distorted.

Einstein said they would be magnified by the gravity of the cluster.

NASA calls this image "Webb’s First Deep Field." It's an image of the galaxy cluster "SMACS 0723." The mass of the galaxies distorts, and magnifies, more distant galaxies in the background Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI

Some 4.5 billion years ago, the cluster of white-looking, ethereal galaxies were formed. It was the same time as the sun and Earth. These white galaxies change the view behind them.

The red dots and bizarrely-distorted galaxies are some of the oldest objects in the universe. "All the super faint, dark-red tiny dots, as well as many of the brighter, strangely shaped objects in this astounding image are extremely distant galaxies that no human eye has seen before," said Ebeling.

The objects in this image are older than 13 billion years. Soon after the first stars and galaxies formed, the past will be even further into the past.

The deep space observatory

NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency collaborated on the design and construction of the telescope. "With this telescope, it's really hard not to break records," said Thomas Zurbuchen, an astronomer and NASA's associate administrator.

Here's how he will do it.

• The mirror is over 21 feet wide. The Hubble Space Telescope's mirror is two and a half times bigger. The more light that is captured, the more distant the objects are.

  "We're going to see the very first stars and galaxies that ever formed, and we're going to do it at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee," Jean said.

• Unlike Hubble, which mostly views light that's visible to us, Webb views light that's not visible. We can see a lot more of the universe. The long wavelength of IR makes it easier for the light waves to slip through the clouds. Hubble's eyesight can't penetrate places that are not visible to the naked eye.

  It lifts the veil.

• Our understanding of distant worlds will be greatly improved by the use of specialized equipment that is carried by the telescope. Water, carbon dioxide, and methane can be detected by the instruments in the atmosphere of distant planets. The astronomer will look at planets in the stars. What will we find?

  According to Mercedes Lpez-Morales, an exoplanet researcher and astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics-Harvard & Smithsonian, we might learn things we didn't think about.