NASA has recently revealed groundbreaking new pictures of space with the James Webb Telescope, allowing us to see our universe in a brand-new light.
NASA’s recent images present the deepest infrared images of the universe ever recorded. The above picture seems almost too beautiful to be real, looking like a piece of abstract digital artwork.
The picture reveals galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, which contains thousands of individual galaxies. Each light spot in the image depicts a galaxy, each containing billions of stars. The distant galaxies are some of the furthest objects ever captured by astronomers.
The image of SMACS 0723 has a strikingly high quality, revealing aspects of our universe that have never been identified before, including new galaxies and star clusters.
President Joe Biden presented the findings at a Whitehouse Event on the 11th of July, drawing attention to the high-resolution image and historic impact it will create.
The image as we see it shows the galaxy cluster as it existed 4.6 billion years ago, this is due to how long it takes for the light to travel to Earth. While light does travel pretty fast, these galaxy clusters are so far away that when looking at this image, we are looking billions of years into the past.
Likewise, if alien lifeforms from one of the galaxy clusters looked in the direction of the Milky Way, they would likely not see Earth, which only formed roughly 4.5 billion years ago.
The galaxy cluster reveals some of the earliest galaxies of our universe, with the Big Bang believed to have been within a billion years of their formation.
As astronomers analyze the image, we will learn more about our universe’s formation as well as that of the individual galaxies. In turn, this will teach us about our own galaxy and what to expect from the future of its evolution.
NASA’s James Webb Telescope has also revealed images of ‘cosmic cliffs’ which shows millions of stars being born.
The shimmering ‘valleys’ depict a star-forming region known as NGC 3324. The new images will help astronomers to better understand star formation and the impact that these stars have on other aspects of the universe.
Check out the videos captured by NASA in 2021 unveiling new information about our own solar system.
