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This Week’s New Space Images From The Webb Telescope And More Will Make Your Jaw Drop
Webb’s ‘Cosmic Cliffs’
A close-up of the Carina Nebula—a nursery 7,600 light-years distant—shows apparent ridges, valleys and pillars of hot dust and gas. Like all of Webb’s first targets it’s in the southern hemisphere’s night sky—that just happened to be where Webb was pointed during July 2022.
The James Webb Space Telescope’s Next Targets Are Potentially Mind-Blowing
With the release of the James Webb Space Telescope’s first images on July 12, NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency proved the $10 billion, 1-million-miles-from-Earth, two decade-long dream ‘scope actually works. And it works flawlessly. Just take a look at the upgraded visuals Webb delivered over its predecessor, Hubble. They’re visceral masterpieces that force us to think of the universe’s magnificence and reflect on our solar system’s negligible corner within.
Even though the telescope’s first full-color results were excellent, they’re merely a taste of the instrument’s capabilities. In truth, we may not even have words to describe what’s to come, in the way the Hubble Space Telescope’s first light image couldn’t foreshadow the astounding deep fields that would one day plaster astronomy department walls or the nebulae that would inspire poetry. Already, researchers are set to point it at phenomena that’ll blow your mind: massive black holes, shattering galaxy mergers, luminescent binary stars emanating smoke signals, and even marvels closer to home like Ganymede, an icy moon of Jupiter.
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Image courtesy NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI