Following a presidential sneak peek of a galaxy-studded image from deep in the cosmos, NASA officials gathered to unveil more of their initial showcase from the James Webb Space Telescope
The first full-color, high-resolution pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope, designed to peer farther than before with greater clarity to the dawn of the universe, were hailed by NASA as milestone marking a new era of astronomical exploration.
Whoops and hollers from a sprightly "cheer team" welcomed some 300 scientists, telescope engineers, politicians and senior officials from NASA and its international partners into a packed and auditorium at Goddard for the official unveiling. The first photos, which took weeks to render from raw telescope data, were selected by NASA to show off Webb's capabilities and foreshadow science missions ahead.
Among the four other Webb subjects getting their closeups on Tuesday were two enormous clouds of gas and dust blasted into space by stellar explosions to form incubators for new stars - the Carina Nebula and the Southern Ring Nebula, each thousands of light years away from Earth.
All five of Webb's introductory targets were previously known to scientists, but NASA officials said Webb's early imagery proved it works as designed, better than expected, while literally capturing its subjects in an entirely new light. The SMACS 0723 image showed a 4.6 billion-year-old galaxy cluster whose combined mass acts as a "gravitational lens," distorting space to greatly magnify light coming from more distant galaxies behind it.
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