First Image From James Webb Space Telescope

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Akousticplyr

Lifer
Oct 12, 2019
1,155
5,712
Florida Panhandle
First Images from the James Webb Space Telescope - https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages






main_image_deep_field_smacs0723-1280.jpg
 

Akousticplyr

Lifer
Oct 12, 2019
1,155
5,712
Florida Panhandle
From NASA:
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail.

Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

This deep field, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest fields, which took weeks.

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.
 

renfield

Lifer
Oct 16, 2011
4,343
32,612
Kansas
Incredible, and that’s just a warm up (no pun intended).

I remember seeing an article not that many years ago with an image of the first recorded gravitational lens. Now the analysis of lensing in images is a commonly used observational tool. Lensing is easily seen in the image above.

Eventually gravity wave telescopes will improve in resolution as optical instruments have. Then we’ll really be able to peel away dust and obscuration.
 
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kcghost

Lifer
May 6, 2011
13,537
22,127
77
Olathe, Kansas
This telescope is amazing. I have been following the mission since the day it was launched. It is amazing that they were able to pull it off with all the single-point failures they had to avoid. I think they still have to declare operational the Coronagraphy on one of the cameras. Everything else is done.
 

renfield

Lifer
Oct 16, 2011
4,343
32,612
Kansas
It is amazing that they were able to pull it off with all the single-point failures they had to avoid.
No kidding. Years ago when I read how many actuation sequences there were in the deployment I thought they were doomed to at lest a few failures. I couldn’t believe that the configuration got approved. Must’ve been a really well done test and evaluation program. A huge “Well done!” to those involved.