US President Joe Biden unveiled the first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in an event at the White House on Monday.
The image – which covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground – reveals thousands of galaxies and provides the most detailed view of the early universe to date.
The image – which NASA says shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago – was taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera, known as NIRCam. It is a composite image made up from pictures taken at different wavelengths.
The image is among the telescope’s first full colour images. The full suite of initial images will be released on Tuesday, US time.
Below – The first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. PICTURE: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI.
