Photos Captured by NASA’s James Webb Telescope Show Dying Star, Dancing Galaxy

The Webb’s use of the infrared light spectrum helps see cosmic dust and light from the “corners of the universe.”

NASA on Tuesday, 12 July released a new batch of images from the James Webb Space Telescope.

(Photo Courtesy: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages)

Video Producer/Editor: Rahul Goreja

The US space agency, NASA, released a new batch of images from the James Webb Space Telescope on Tuesday, 12 July, including an image of a foamy, blue and orange dying star.

The first image from the $10 billion telescope was released at the White House on Monday, 11 July, and it showed an array of distant galaxies, making it the deepest image of the cosmos till date.

The next batch of four photos, which was released on Tuesday, included several shots of the cosmos seen in a new light owing to the Webb’s sheer power, distant location, and infrared capability.

NASA administrator Bill Nelson, speaking about the images which show “the formation of stars, devouring black holes” said, “Every image is a new discovery and each will give humanity a view of the humanity that we’ve never seen before.”

He added that the Webb’s use of the infrared light spectrum allows the telescope to see through cosmic dust and see light from the “corners of the universe.”

The James Webb telescope, which was constructed by aerospace giant Northrop Grumman Corp, was launched by NASA and the European and Canadian space agencies from French Guiana in December 2021.

Images From the Telescope

One of the brightest and largest stellar nurseries in space, Carina Nebula is home to many massive stars which are several times the size of the Sun. Carina Nebula is about 7,600 light years away. For reference, a light year is 5.8 trillion miles.

Carina Nebula

(Photo Courtesy: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages)

The Southern Ring Nebula, also known as "eight-burst" because of its figure-8 structure when seen through telescopes, is almost 2,500 light years away and shows an expanding cloud of gas around a dying star.

The Southern Ring Nebula

(Photo Courtesy: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages)

Stephan’s Quintet is composed of five galaxies, where four of them are locked in a “cosmic dance." Popular for being one of the first compact galaxy groups ever discovered, it is 290 million light years away and was first seen in the Pegasus constellation.

Stephan’s Quintet

(Photo Courtesy: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages)

Discovered in 2014, WASP-96b is a massive bluish gas giant located almost 1,150 light years from Earth. The Webb telescope recently captured the signature of water on WASP-96b. Roughly the size of Saturn, it orbits its star every three to four days and has half the mass of Jupiter. While it is not a candidate for sustenance of life, it is a key target for astronomers.

(Photo Courtesy: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages)

Webb's First Deep Field

NASA, along with the European Space Agency (ESA), and Canadian Space Agency (CSA), released on Monday the first image captured by the telescope – the deepest, sharpest infrared view of the early universe to date.

The image, known as Webb's First Deep Field, spans a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand, held at arm’s length by someone on the ground, and reveals thousands of galaxies in a tiny sliver of the cosmos.

The first image captured by the Webb telescope.

(Photo Courtesy: https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages)

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago, marking the farthest we have ever seen in not just space but also time.

The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it, NASA said in a press release.

The image was unveiled by US President Joe Biden during a White House event on Monday.

"The first image from the Webb Space Telescope represents a historic moment for science and technology. For astronomy and space exploration," the president tweeted.