Monday, July 11, 2022

Photo of the Day: Hubble's Successor Has Officially Begun a New Era in Astronomy!

An image of Webb's First Deep Field...which was unveiled by U.S. President Joe Biden and NASA on July 11, 2022.
NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

President Biden Reveals First Image from NASA’s Webb Telescope (Press Release)

President Joe Biden released the first full-color image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope 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 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.”

Learn more about this deep field image.

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.

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