US president Joe Biden released one of the first images of the universe the James Webb Space Telescope clicked on Monday (local time). The image shows the deepest view of the universe that has never been seen before.
In the image one can see SMACS 0723 which is a large group of galaxy clusters which act as magnifying glass for the objects behind them. Using the gravitational lensing technology, the Webb telescope created the first deep field view of old, distant and faint galaxies.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said the image captured by the telescope is the deepest image of the universe that has ever been taken.
“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,” the NASA release said.
Some of the images of these distant galaxies and star clusters were never seen earlier. The galaxy cluster is shown in the picture as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago.
The photo was clicked by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera. The images were clicked at different wavelengths of light over the course of twelve and a half hours and it is faster than the Hubble Space Telescope as its deepest fields took weeks to capture the image.
More high-resolution images featuring the faraway planets and “stellar nurseries” where stars form will be shared on Tuesday. The new images will include the Carina Nebula, WASP-96b, the Southern Ring Nebula and Stephan’s Quintet.
The Carina Nebula is a stellar nursery where more stars larger than our sun reside. It is more than 9,600-light years away. The exoplanet WASP-96b and its atmosphere’s images will also be released. The planet is 1,150 light-years from Earth and is half the mass of Jupiter and it orbits around its sun in just 3.4 days.
US president Biden was full of awe following the release. “It’s hard to even fathom,” the US president said while grasping the fact that the Webb telescope is capturing universe imagery from some 13 billion years ago.
“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,” Biden was quoted as saying by news agency AFP.
The rest of the high-resolution color images from the Webb telescope will make their debut on July 12.
The Webb space observatory was launched earlier in December last year via an Ariane 5 rocket. The space observatory is orbiting the sun a distance of 1.6 million kilometers from the Earth from an area in space called the Lagrange point.
The primary mirror of the space telescope is over 6.5 meters wide and is made up of 18 gold-coated mirror segments. It has fuel to run for 10 years and has reserve fuel as well to power it for some more time.
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