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. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
This image covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length.
Thousands of galaxies are revealed in this first science image from the observatory, which includes the Mid-Infrared Instrument managed by JPL for NASA.
Learn more about this deep field image
July 12, 2022 - President Joe Biden released the first full-color image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope on Monday during a public event at the White House in Washington. This first image showcases the powerful capabilities of the Webb mission, a partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
“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,” said President Biden in remarks during the event. “We can see possibilities no one has ever seen before. We can go places no one has ever gone before.”
Webb’s first full-color image reveals thousands of galaxies, including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared.
“Webb’s First Deep Field is not only the first full-color image from the James Webb Space Telescope, it’s the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe, so far. This image covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length. It’s just a tiny sliver of the vast universe,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. “This mission was made possible by human ingenuity – the incredible NASA Webb team and our international partners at the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. Webb is just the start of what we can accomplish in the future when we work together for the benefit of humanity.”
This record-setting deep field provides a preview of the full set of Webb’s first images, which will be released at 10:30 a.m. EDT (7:30 a.m. PDT) Tuesday, July 12, in a live broadcast on NASA Television. The images will be available at: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages
More information about how to watch the live reveal of the full set of Webb’s first images on Tuesday, July 12, is available online.
“Scientists are thrilled that Webb is alive and as powerful as we hoped, far beyond Hubble, and that it survived all hazards to be our golden eye in the sky,” said John Mather, Webb senior project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “What happened after the big bang? How did the expanding universe cool down and make black holes and galaxies and stars and planets and people? Astronomers see everything twice: first with pictures, and then with imagination and calculation. But there’s something out there that we’ve never imagined, and I will be as amazed as you are when we find it.”
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb launched Dec. 25, 2021, on an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana, South America. After completing a complex deployment sequence in space, Webb underwent months of commissioning where its mirrors were aligned and its instruments were prepared for science.
Source: NASA
Biden Administration Makes Public First Full-Color Image from Webb SpaceTelescope
July 12, 2022 - On Monday, the Biden Administration made public the first full-color image from the Webb Space Telescope, which captured the highest-resolution images of the infrared universe in history. The Webb Space Telescope launched from French Guiana in December 2021 and is now orbiting the Sun one million miles away from Earth. The image was previewed to President Biden and Vice President Harris during a briefing at the White House by officials from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), where they discussed how these revolutionary images will enable breakthroughs in nearly every branch of astronomy.
During the briefing, President Biden publicly showed the first of the images: “Webb’s First Deep Field,” the “deepest” and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe ever produced. This image is filled with galaxies, some more than 13 billion years old, which means they formed just after the Big Bang. Over the coming days, NASA will publish additional images, which reveal details about the atmosphere of an exoplanet outside our solar system, “stellar nurseries” where stars form, galaxies that interact and trigger star formation and black holes, and a glimpse into how stars die.
The Webb Space Telescope is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency. Its revolutionary technology will study every phase of cosmic history over the past 13.5 billion years — from inside our solar system to the most distant observable galaxies in the early universe. The telescope gives us the capacity to explore a wide range of questions that help us understand the origins of the universe and our place within it. The telescope is one of humanity’s great engineering feats, launching from Earth on a rocket, and then unfolding itself in space. Thousands of engineers and hundreds of scientists worked to make the telescope a reality, along with over 300 universities, organizations, and companies from 29 U.S. states and 14 countries.
President Biden and Vice President Harris, who chairs the National Space Council, were briefed by NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, Deputy Assistant to the President Dr. Alondra Nelson, who leads the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Head of NASA Science Thomas Zurbuchen, James Webb Space Telescope Program Director Greg Robinson, Operations Project Scientist Jane Rigby, and Space Telescope Science Institute Deputy Director Nancy Levenson.
The images from the Webb Space Telescope illustrate the great leaps in science and technology discovery that can be made with U.S. government leadership, in partnership with other countries. The Biden-Harris Administration has worked to restore scientific integrity to Federal policy-making and to more broadly and equitably engage and serve Americans around science and technology solutions, including addressing great challenges like pandemics, cancer, and the climate crisis, and ensuring America remains the world leader in technologies and industries of the future that will be critical to our economic prosperity and national security.
Source: Office of the White House
