James Webb telescope reveals the universe as we’ve never seen it before

US: The James Webb Space Telescope, the most powerful observatory to be placed in orbit, has revealed the “deepest and sharpest infrared image of the early universe” ever taken, going back 13 billion years, NASA said Monday.

At first glance, the first image from NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope may not seem all that remarkable.

But in reality, what appears to be tiny specks in space are actually galaxies — billions of years old.

“If you held a grain of sand on the tip of your finger at arms length, that is the part of the universe you are seeing — just one little speck of the universe,” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said of the image on Monday.

The US$10 billion James Webb Space Telescope is the most sophisticated observatory ever launched. It left Earth last December. In late January, it reached its celestial parking place a million miles away from the planet. Since then, engineers have been checking out the instruments, aligning the mirrors and letting the telescope cool down so its instruments will work properly. Launched in December 2021 from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket, Webb is orbiting the Sun at a distance of a million miles (1.6 million kilometers) from Earth, in a region of space called the second Lagrange point.

– NDTV