Images from the Webb space telescope start arriving

First images from the James Webb Space Telescope have been published. The first deed space image showed thousands of galaxies, including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared. This sliver of the universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

The image below was taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours. The image includes infrared light from wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest fields. 

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it. Webb’s NIRCam has brought those distant galaxies into sharp focus – they have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features. Researchers will soon begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions, as Webb seeks the earliest galaxies in the universe.

Gravity lensing effects are observable when a massive object magnifies or distorts the light of objects lying behind it. For example, the powerful gravitational field of a massive cluster of galaxies can bend the light rays from more distant galaxies, just as a camera lens bends light to form a picture. You can see the lensing effect of gravity on light by the curved appearance of galaxies. The curvature is around a central point or region in space.




The human eye cannot see light at the infrared wavelengths used to make the image, so computer programs were used to artificially color what the camera detected. One source called the images coming in "ridiculously sharp," meaning this imaging data constitutes a major advance in our ability to see the universe clearly and farther back in time than previously possible. 

A side-by-side comparison of an image from the Hubble space telescope and Webb.



Another image from Webb.





By Germaine: The science dude, part time

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