- Together with US President Joe Biden and his Vice President Kamala Harris, the US space agency Nasa presented the first image from the James Webb space telescope.
- The image shows stars and galaxies. According to NASA, this is the “deepest and sharpest infrared view of the universe recorded to date”.
- The publication marks the official start of scientific work with the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched, according to NASA.
First James Webb Telescope image released
Biden spoke of a “historic day”, Harris of an “exciting new capital in the exploration of our universe”. At the same time, he admitted that the idea of the approximately 1.5 million kilometers that the telescope is supposed to fly into space “breaks my brain”.
More images taken by the telescope are scheduled to be released Tuesday afternoon. The image only shows “a small part of the universe,” said NASA boss Bill Nelson. He explained: “The light that you see on one of these little spots has been traveling for 13 billion years.” The images would remind the world “that America can do great things,” Biden said.
Test image captured by sensor
The color images were selected by representatives of various space agencies involved in the project and show, among other things, the so-called Carina Nebula, a type of gas cloud, and the planet “Wasp-96 b”, which lies outside our solar system.
A kind of preview was already presented last week. Actually, it is just a test image taken by a sensor that was originally not supposed to be sent to Earth, according to NASA. But it shows what the telescope is capable of. The telescope had already sent the first test images to earth a few months ago, including photos of a star and a selfie. This should prove that the camera and the 18 mirror segments of the telescope work in principle.
delays and additional costs
“James Webb” was launched on December 25 aboard an Ariane launch vehicle from the European space station in Kourou in French Guiana – after there had previously been cost explosions and repeated postponements. The space agencies of the USA, Canada and Europe are cooperating on the project. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) took around 30 years to develop and ended up costing around 10 billion dollars.
It follows the Hubble telescope, which has been in use for more than 30 years. While “Hubble” works in the optical and ultraviolet range, “James Webb” investigates in the near-infrared range. “James Webb” is to fly around 1.5 million kilometers into space and, among other things, provide new images from the early universe with the help of a 25 square meter mirror.
Scientists hope that the recordings will provide insights into the time after the Big Bang around 13.8 billion years ago. They’re hoping for images of stars older than our solar system and perhaps no longer in existence — and possibly even evidence of a second Earth. The lifespan of “James Webb” is initially designed for ten years.