After 14 years of development and six months of calibration, the James Webb Space Telescope is finally ready to embark on its mission to probe the depths of our cosmos. On Monday, NASA and President Joe Biden shared the first colored image from the space telescope, showcasing a look at the early days of the universe.
According to NASA, "Webb's First Deep Field" represents the sharpest and "deepest" image of the distant universe to date. What you see is a snapshot of a cluster of galaxies known as SMACS 0723 as they appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of all the galaxies pictured acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying the much more distant celestial bodies seen in the background. Some of the galaxies have never-before-seen features that astronomers will soon study to learn more about the history of our universe. NASA notes Webb's First Deep Field doesn't represent our earliest look at the universe. Microwave telescopes like the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) captured snapshots closer to the Big Bang but did not offer a view of stars and galaxies like the one captured by Webb.
“Mr. President, if you held a grain of sand on the tip of your finger at arm’s length, that is the part of the universe that you’re seeing,” NASA administrator Bill Nelson told President Biden during Monday's briefing. “Just one little speck of the universe.”
