In a surprise shakeup, President Joe Biden today (July 11) unveiled the first science image released by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), NASA’s next-generation infrared space telescope.
The spectacular image, taken by JWST's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is the highest resolution image of the infrared universe ever seen. Thanks to a serendipitous alignment, the images shows SMACS 0723, a massive galaxy cluster in the foreground that is magnifying and distorting our view of more distant cosmic objects located behind it. The phenomenon that makes this possible is called gravitational lensing, and it allows astronomers to study the most distant galaxies in the universe, those that would otherwise remain beyond the reach of even the most powerful telescopes.
“If you held a grain of sand on the tip of your finger at arm’s length, that is the part of the universe you're seeing — just one little speck of the universe,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. Thanks to a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing, where massive collections of galaxies in the foreground serve as magnifying lenses for more distant objects, “we’re looking back more than 13 billion years,” Nelson said.
