Joe Biden , President of the United States, unveiled the first official image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope , a milestone that took 20 years to conceive.
President Joe Biden has revealed the first official color image from the James Webb Telescope : the SMACS J0723.3-7327 cluster .
Through a live event, the president of the United States and the administrator of NASA , Bill Nelson, presented the photograph, which is the deepest infrared image of the universe to date.
James Webb Telescope images at 13 billion years
The James Webb Telescope image spans a patch of sky that, to a ground-based observer, appears about the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length, revealing thousands of galaxies in a small swath of the vast universe.
The galaxy cluster SMACS J0723.3-7327 was imaged by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam). It is composed of images in different wavelengths, with a total of 12.5 hours of exposure, reaching greater depths in infrared wavelengths.
According to NASA , this is what the cluster looked like 4.6 billion years ago. However, many of these inner galaxies are up to 13 billion light-years away. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it.
“You’re seeing galaxies shining around other galaxies whose light has been bent, and you’re seeing only a small portion of the universe,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said, along with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. “These images will remind the world that America can do great things,” Biden said.
NASA: Images from the James Webb Telescope will be revealed today
This featured image is only the first of several. This Tuesday, July 12, will be the official revelation of the rest of the shots captured by James Webb.
According to NASA , the imaging targets are the Carina Nebula, the Southern Ring Nebula, Stephan’s Quintet, the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, and the exoplanet WASP-96b . Bill Nelson, director of the agency, promised last week “the deepest picture ever taken of our universe.”
Scientists who have already been able to see the images obtained by the James Webb telescope have indicated that they are “moved” by the quality and importance they will have for the study of the universe.
James Webb is the world’s premier space science observatory, and once fully operational it will help solve mysteries of our solar system , look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and explore the mysterious structures and origins of our own. universe and our place in it.