Webb telescope reveals deepest image of early universe

Truly amazing images that reveal systems as they existed more than a third of the way back to the Big Bang. Huge fan of the many series on space and time from Brian Cox on BBC Earth channel. They tend to put our earthly troubles in their proper perspective and…….well, insignificance. Climate change is viewed differently when one realizes our sun will incinerate our planet in a few billion years.

An amazing accomplishment possible when countries and professionals ignore politics and work together on a common goal. It also places our concerns and differences in a different perspective.

Most people live their whole lives without knowing they live in the Virgo Supercluster or that there were 8 different types of human species on this planet before us. If only people knew more about the universe and themselves they'd pay less attention in the whole bunch of irrelevant everything that surround and distract us. In that sense Japan is a paradise for astronomy fans, countless science museums and planetariums in every prefecture, even in the middle of absolutely nowhere. はまぎんこども宇宙科学館 museum in Yokohama left me particularly impressed, you can spend a whole day there and come back for more

"An amazing accomplishment possible when countries and professionals ignore politics and work together on a common goal."

A nice sentiment, and I agree that this should be the goal. I am proud of such achievements, and take a vicarious pride in having the privilege of living while such things occur.

However, it would be remiss to fail to point out that not all countries' contributions are equal, would it not? Namely, one country footed more than 90% of the bill for this new telescope, correct?

One might go so far as to say that without that one country's continuous lion's share of the contributions and output to such space things (more than three times the public spending than that of the ESA annually, for example, to say nothing of its 95% private space program contributions), this project, like much else of what upholds today's global trade stability and international underpinnings here on earth, would probably not exist at all.

I have a Facebook friend, whose daughter was born and raised here in Okinawa, who worked on the mirror team, I believe it was, for the Webb project.

He and his Okinawan wife, are two very proud parents, as well as they should be! She really reached for the stars!

Billions and billions . . .

And to think the image above was taken from a focal point the size of a grain of sand. Remarkable.

Webb compiled the composite shot in 12.5 hours, achieving well beyond what its predecessor the Hubble Space Telescope could in weeks

Not weeks but about 11 days, not very different from Hubble's UDF, now exoplanets is where JWST will make the difference, Tabby's star will be a good start.

Amazing achievement. Why are we so keen on self destruction not self evolution?

In this screen grab of a White House broadcast

A blurry screen grab? Y'all need to grab a Full Res, 4537 X 4630 image from the NASA site. Zoom in and admire the detail. Light from 4.6 billion years ago, reaching us just now. Awe-inspiring. All that from tiny grain of sand spec in the sky. Imagine having superhuman eyesight and looking up at the night sky and the entire viewable hemisphere looked like that. wow

https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/038/01G7JGTH21B5GN9VCYAHBXKSD1

For those who are impressed with this achievement (as I am). I suggest revisiting Carl Sagan's COSMOS.

He had the knack of putting things into perspective.

He stands on a beach with a hand full of sand and says," There are about 10,000 grains on sand in my hand.

There are more stars in the universe than all of the sand on all of the beaches on Earth".

BIG!

I wish I had those Photoshop skills.

A snarky guy would say.

The universe never ceases to amaze me and makes me appreciate this life on this small planet we call earth.

Everyone should take a grain of sand and hold it at arm's length against the sky. THAT is the portion of the sky imaged by Webb for this very first picture. In it, we can count a few thousand galaxies, each with a few billion stars. Now multiply it to all of the sky. It's THAT BIG.

finally richToday  11:09 am JST

Most people live their whole lives without knowing they live in the Virgo Supercluster or that there were 8 different types of human species on this planet before us. If only people knew more about the universe and themselves they'd pay less attention in the whole bunch of irrelevant everything that surround and distract us. I

That's one of the reasons I have astronomy as one of my hobbies. Ever since I was 9 years old in 1975 and we had not one but two total lunar eclipses I've been fascinated with it all. And since middle school sucked I had something to help me escape so to speak.

We've had all those robot space missions to the outer planets and interstellar space to further pique my interest and fun in the meantime.

Even now with this lockdown I've found ways to enjoy all this. We've found planets around other stars, and our knowledge of this universe just keeps on expanding. And now, this. WOW, baby. Wow. Gets better all the time.

They've basically built a time machine.

We know more about space than we do the Earth's oceans.

As an American taxpayer, former NASA worker, stuff like this makes me proud and a little frustrated. These programs are very expensive when there are still people on welfare in the US or people living without indoor plumbing. I'm just a bit sad.

JWST is expected to cost NASA $9.7 billion over 24 years

$861 million is planned to support five years of operations, which should be extended multiple times, if it doesn't fail - at least 15 yrs.

Those are only the USGovt portions of the cost.

The Hubble mission has cost approximately $16 billion in 2021 USD.

The ESA contributed €700 million.

Canada CA$200 million.

The US does lots of things for pure science. It makes nearly all that data available to the world, for free, and not just for space science, but aeronautics, geo-sciences, weather science, biology and many out science things. The CDC was (pre-Trump) the world-wide leader for infectious disease research. Of course, pre-COVID, the US had nearly zero experience with any pandemic, so both China and Canada had more knowledge. OTOH, US has been sending infectious disease experts around the world to help fight different breakouts, like Ebola in multiple West African nations.

Before Trump, I trusted the papers from USGovt science (except a few from NIST who I still don't trust). Some appalling studies were done until 1972 both in the US and other countries, but I think those all ended due to embarrassing leaks and public shock.

I think the US NOAA agency changed weather forecasting for the entire world, thanks to satellite data. NOAA science often overlaps with NASA science.