Webb takes its first view of the cosmos
Tchosen not for its scientific significance but purely for its brightness and location.
At the beginning of the alignment process, the telescope was delivering 18 individual images of the star, with each of the primary mirror segments acting as a telescope on its own. The latest image shows a brightly shining, amber-coloured star emanating streams of light across the universe. Even more interesting than the star itself, however, is its background, revealing dozens of specks and dots – each a distant galaxy that was previously out of reach.
These distant galaxies make Webb’s first image a so-called deep field. Such photographs, focusing on small sections of the sky, aim to capture the most distant objects in the universe.
Deep fields are a specialty of the Hubble Space Telescope, Webb’s predecessor. Webb, however, is set to beat Hubble in its ability to peer into the depths of space. “There’s no way that Webb can look for 2,000 seconds at any point in the sky and not get an incredibly deep field,” Rigby said. “This is going to be the future from now on. Wherever we look, it’s a deep field. Without even really breaking a sweat, we’re seeing back in time to galaxies where we’re seeing the light as it looked billions of years ago.”
“The image shows an ambercoloured star emanating streams of light across the universe”