Thursday, 14 July 2022

Not in your neighborhood

198 days since it launched on Christmas Day 2021 and a million miles of travelling later, the most powerful telescope to ever take flight has returned its first image.......and it's as ground-breaking and historic as you'd expect. The first image from the James Webb Space Telescope, revealed its deepest, sharpest infrared view of the universe to date. The striking image is just the first of many which are expected to come in the coming days and indeed for the next 20 years, as the JWST is expected to change and shape much of what we know and have learnt about space so far. It's overwhelmingly beautiful, knowing that these images have been in space, on the way to this camera, for over 13 billion years. These images brings back memories of another iconic deep space photo, when the Hubble Space Telescope had stared at a seemingly empty patch of sky for 100 hours back in 1995 and revealed the iconic galaxy-filled photo which has served as the backdrop to countless documentaries and posters. Now, we enter a new phase of scientific discovery. It will enhance what we know about the origins of our universe, our solar system, and possibly life itself. Here's a photo that is billions of miles away!

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