Washington, DC, July 12, 2022 According to the German Press Agency (dpa), NASA unveiled the first full-color image from the James Webb space telescope on Monday, describing it as the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date.
According to the US space agency, the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago is depicted in the deep field composite image of a cluster of galaxies.
During a sneak peek event at the White House with Vice President Kamala Harris, US President Joe Biden unveiled the image, the first of a series.
On Tuesday, the remaining full-color photographs from the telescope are expected to be made public.
Representatives from the several space agencies involved in the project chose them.
The WASP-96 b, a massive gas planet outside of our solar system, and the so-called Carina Nebula, a sort of gas cloud located about 7,600 light years distant, are two of the cosmic phenomena that can be seen in the photographs, according to a NASA release.
The Webb telescope, the biggest and most potent telescope ever sent into space, will now be used for scientific research following the publishing of the photos.
On December 25th, the European Space Agency’s Kourou spaceport in French Guiana launched the James Webb telescope atop an Ariane launch vehicle.
The photos from the telescope are expected to provide light on the time immediately following the Big Bang, which occurred around 13.8 billion years ago.
The development of the Webb, which cost roughly $10 billion, took about 30 years. The Hubble telescope, which has been in use for more than 30 years, gets replaced by it.