NASA shows first high-resolution image from James Webb Space Telescope
US President Joe Biden has presented with NASA the first high-resolution image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. That photo shows an infrared image of the deep universe, created by allowing the telescope to shoot for 12.5 hours.
NASA calls the Webb First Deep Field image, similar to the famous Hubble Deep Field image from the predecessor of the JWST. The image shows galaxies lying behind the Smacs 0723 cluster, which itself is 4.6 billion light-years from Earth. Several thousand galaxies can be seen on it, while the observed part of the sky is only very small. According to NASA, James Webb was looking at an area no larger than a grain of sand at arm’s length from Earth. The galaxies in the picture emit light that is in some cases 13 billion years old. This makes them the oldest objects ever recorded.
The image shows the light from the distant galaxies being deflected by the light from the Smacs 0723 cluster. This deflection makes the weak light appear even brighter. This is called the gravitational lens effect.
The photo was taken by one of the JWST’s four cameras. This specifically concerns the Near-Infrared Camera or NIRCam. In fact, it is a combination of several photos taken at different wavelengths. The camera recorded photos for 12.5 hours. That is much shorter than predecessor Hubble needed; for the Hubble Deep Field, the camera had to be pointed at a piece of the universe for weeks.
The Webb First Deep Field is the first ‘real’ image taken by the space telescope. In March, NASA released a photo of a star taken by the same camera. That was a test photo to see if the NIRCam was adjusted properly. The First Deep Field photo was presented by the US President and Vice President in the presence of NASA Director Bill Nelson. On Tuesday afternoon, NASA will show another three photos from the JWST. These are a picture of another galaxy cluster, of a nebula and of a gas cloud around a star.
The James Webb Space Telescope launched on Christmas Day last year after years of construction delays. After the telescope arrived at the final L2 point, the telescope’s mirrors unfolded. According to NASA, the first photos yielded “better results than expected.” Tweakers wrote a series of articles about the telescope last year.