![]() Simple snapshots of a star obtained by the telescope’s workhorse instrument, the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), also serendipitously included more than 1,000 “photobombing” background galaxies that would have been too faint to simply swim into view in any other observatory’s optics. That deep freeze allows it to see-or rather feel-the infrared glow of far-flung galaxies, nearby planets and everything in between.Įven before today’s official images were released, earlier pictures taken to guide Webb’s complex deep-space commissioning hinted at the observatory’s stunning capabilities. Perched 1.5 million kilometers from Earth and shaded by a multilayered sunshield as big as a tennis court, the telescope’s kit is cooled close to the temperature of the vacuum of space. Each of the telescope’s latest images has marshaled the might of at least one of Webb’s four main instruments, as well as its giant 6.5-meter segmented primary mirror, composed of 18 coffee-table-sized hexagonal slabs of gold-plated beryllium that folded together like a piece of origami to fit within an Ariane 5 rocket. Now it promises to revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos during a mission that could stretch into the 2040s. But for a time, the observatory was more of a cruel joke among astronomers: the technical demands of its development pushed the project so far over budget and behind schedule that many suspected it would never launch at all. We can go places no one has ever gone before.”Ĭonstructed by NASA, as well as Europe’s and Canada’s space agencies, Webb is controversially named for a former NASA administrator, and it is the most powerful off-world observatory yet built. “We can see possibilities no one has ever seen before. ![]() “These images are going to remind the world that America can do big things, and remind the American people – especially our children – that there’s nothing beyond our capacity,” President Biden said during the event. President Joe Biden himself offered a sneak preview yesterday evening from the White House, revealing what is destined to be the most iconic picture from the set. After nearly three decades of troubled development and $10 billion in spending, a pulse-pounding launch on Christmas Day in 2021 and a nail-biting half-year of delicate preparations in deep space, the James Webb Space Telescope has at last delivered a complete set of first full-color images. The next great era of astronomy truly began this morning. ![]()
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