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Historic: First high-quality image of galaxies formed by the Big Bang revealed
The photograph is the "deepest and sharpest infrared image of the early universe," reaching some 13 billion light-years
July 11, 2022 7:40pm
Updated: July 12, 2022 7:02pm
The first image of outer space taken by the James Webb Space Telescope—the most powerful telescope in orbit—was revealed on Monday at a White House event by President Joe Biden.
The image, riddled with bright spots of various sizes, shows the first galaxies formed shortly after the Big Bang and features faint objects of light that have never been observed before.
Ya está aquí: la visión infrarroja más profunda y nítida del universo hasta la fecha, ¡el primer campo profundo de Webb!
— NASA en español (@NASA_es) July 11, 2022
Presentada por @POTUS hoy, nos muestra galaxias que antes nos eran invisibles. El conjunto completo se revelará el 12 de julio: https://t.co/4yCZjGZOr9 pic.twitter.com/oat6kasW6D
The photograph is the "deepest, sharpest infrared image of the early universe," reaching some 13 billion light-years, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said at the event, AFP reported.
The image, which is among five announced last week, captured the "deep field" of the so-called SMACS 0723, a cluster of massive foreground galaxy clusters that magnify and distort the light from objects behind them.
NASA will release the rest of the first wave of images from the Webb telescope this Tuesday. The images show the Carina nebula, the spectrum of the planet WASP-96b, the South Ring nebula, and the compact group of galaxies called Stephan's Quintet.
The Webb Space Telescope is an international mission led by NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency. Launched on Christmas Day 2021 and eventually located 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, its 6.5-meter diameter main mirror promises much more precise observations than its predecessor, the Hubble telescope.
