essay on james webb space telescope

What Is the James Webb Space Telescope?

An animation illustrating what the James Webb Space Telescope Looks like. Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (modified)

The James Webb Space Telescope is the largest, most powerful space telescope ever built. It will allow scientists to look at what our universe was like about 200 million years after the Big Bang . The telescope will be able to capture images of some of the first galaxies ever formed. It will also be able to observe objects in our solar system from Mars outward, look inside dust clouds to see where new stars and planets are forming and examine the atmospheres of planets orbiting other stars.

Here are some fun facts about the James Webb Space Telescope:

It is very, very big.

The Webb telescope is as tall as a 3-story building and as long as a tennis court! It is so big that it has to fold origami-style to fit inside the rocket to launch. The telescope will unfold, sunshield first, once in space.

The James Webb Space Telescope is about the same size as a tennis court and about as tall as a 3-story building! Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It can see through dust clouds.

Infrared cameras can see through dust and smoke. Credit: NASA/IPAC/Pasadena Fire Dept.

The James Webb Space Telescope sees the universe in light that is invisible to human eyes. This light is called infrared radiation , and we can feel it as heat. Firefighters use infrared cameras to see and rescue people through the smoke in a fire. The James Webb Space Telescope will use its infrared cameras to see through dust in our universe. Stars and planets form inside those dust clouds, so peeking inside could lead to exciting new discoveries! It will also be able to see objects (like the first galaxies) that are so far away that the expansion of the universe has made their light shift from visible to infrared!

It wears a "hat" to help block heat and light from the Sun.

This animation shows how the sunshield will unfold when the Webb telescope reaches its home in orbit. Credit: NASA

The Webb telescope’s cameras are sensitive to heat from the Sun. Just like you might wear a hat or a visor to block the Sun from your eyes, Webb has a sunshield to protect its instruments and mirrors. The telescope’s sunshield is about the size of a tennis court. The temperature difference between the sun-facing and shaded sides of the telescope is more than 600 degrees Fahrenheit!

It uses giant, gold-coated mirrors to see the universe.

Engineers inspecting the Webb telescope’s mirrors at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Credit: NASA/Chris Gunn

Space telescopes “see” by using mirrors to collect and focus light from distant stars. ( Check out our telescopes page to learn more about how space telescopes work.) The bigger the mirror, the more details the telescope can see. It’s very difficult to launch a giant, heavy mirror into space. So, engineers gave the Webb telescope 18 smaller mirrors that fit together like a puzzle. The mirrors fold up inside the rocket, then unfold to form one large mirror in orbit.

Why are the mirrors gold? A thin layer of gold helps the mirrors reflect infrared light!

It will be hunting for signs of life on other planets.

Could life survive on this faraway planet? Astronomers study the light from stars and planets to see if they might have the ingredients for life. Animation credit: NASA/ESA/Dani Player (STScI), Music credit: Steve Combs

Our solar system isn’t the only home for planets! Scientists have discovered thousands of planets orbiting stars other than our Sun. These are called exoplanets . The James Webb Space Telescope will help to study the atmospheres of exoplanets. Could the atmospheres of some exoplanets hold the building blocks for life? We will find out soon!

What is the James Webb Space Telescope doing right now?

The James Webb Space Telescope launched on December 25, 2021. Want to stay up to date and learn more about NASA’s biggest and most powerful telescope? Check out this cool timeline to learn what the telescope is doing right now! Also, Find more facts, photos, videos and more at the James Webb Space Telescope Website !

Related resources from NASA

NASA Exoplanets: What is the habitable zone? James Webb Space Telescope Poster Lesson Plans, Activities, Resources & Programs For Informal Education Teachable Moment: Learn About the Universe With the James Webb Space Telescope

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James Webb Space Telescope, the world's new great space observatory

Highlights NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, JWST, is a multipurpose observatory launched in December 2021 that will build on the legacy of the Hubble Space Telescope. Like Hubble, JWST is expected to revolutionize our understanding of the cosmos. It will help us determine whether planets orbiting other stars could support life, and see galaxies that formed just after the Big Bang. JWST was originally planned to launch in 2014.

Why We Need JWST

Science is all about standing on the shoulders of giants, and that’s certainly the case for JWST. The observatory builds upon three decades of discoveries by the Hubble Space Telescope , which launched in 1990 and has revolutionized our understanding of the cosmos.

Earth’s atmosphere distorts our view of distant celestial objects and blocks certain wavelengths of light, including slices of infrared that human eyes cannot see. Infrared-capable space telescopes can determine the atmospheric composition of planets orbiting other stars, look through clouds of dust and gas to see newborn stars, and even peer back through time to see galaxies that formed right after the Big Bang !

JWST is able to see a much larger portion of the infrared spectrum than Hubble, and collects six times more light. It complements and extends Hubble’s observations, becoming the world’s newest premiere space observatory.

So far, we know of more than 4,000 exoplanets — planets orbiting stars . Do any of these worlds host life as we know it? JWST will take us another step closer to finding out. One of the ways we study exoplanets is by watching them pass in front of their host stars , which creates a small dip in the amount of starlight we see from Earth. Not only does the amount of light change, the type changes too, due to interactions between the starlight and exoplanet’s atmosphere.

These changes show up particularly well in the infrared, which is exactly the kind of light JWST is equipped to see. What are we looking for? Life on other worlds may be more exotic than anything we’ve ever imagined, but it makes sense to start by looking for worlds like our own. An Earth-like planet would have an atmosphere made primarily of nitrogen and oxygen, with trace amounts of gases associated with life like methane and ozone. An early target for JWST will be TRAPPIST-1 , a star system 40 light-years away that contains multiple planets in the habitable zone , the not-too-hot, not-too-cold region around a star where liquid water can exist on a planet’s surface.

JWST is an international observatory. In addition to providing the Ariane 5 rocket, the European Space Agency contributed to two of JWST’s four science instruments. The Canadian Space Agency also provided one instrument.

How much does JWST cost?

JWST is expected to cost NASA $9.7 billion over 24 years. Of that amount, $8.8 billion was spent on spacecraft development between 2003 and 2021; $861 million is planned to support five years of operations. Adjusted for inflation to 2020 dollars, the lifetime cost to NASA will be approximately $10.8 billion .

The Planetary Society has additional context to help you understand these numbers . JWST was originally estimated to cost $4.96 billion and launch in 2014. But serious mismanagement and under-resourcing during critical early planning stages caused the ambitious spacecraft to fall behind schedule. After NASA restructured the project to launch in 2018 the total cost increased to $8.8 billion. In the intervening years, the program struggled to address serious technical problems, further delaying the launch to 2021. This final delay added yet another billion dollars to the total cost.

What’s in a name?

The James Webb Space Telescope is named after James Webb, who served as NASA’s second administrator from 1961 to 1968. More than 1,700 space scientists and enthusiasts — including people who have applied for observing time on the telescope — have asked NASA to change the name. They point to archival evidence showing that while serving as undersecretary of state prior to his tenure at NASA, Webb participated in discussions regarding the “lavender scare,” an effort to purge queer people from government service. In 1963, while Webb was administrator, a NASA employee in Washington, D.C. was arrested, interrogated and fired for making a "homosexual advance." In September 2021, NASA announced that a historical review found no evidence that warranted changing the telescope's name.

How JWST Works

Before JWST could do its job, it first had to get to space. The telescope launched aboard Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket, which has a payload fairing, or nose cone, 5.4 meters across — one of the world’s biggest. That still was not wide enough for JWST’s 6.5-meter mirror, which consists of 18 hexagonal segments arranged like a honeycomb. Three segments on each side folded back for launch so the telescope could fit.

Other parts of JWST were packed up for launch, too, making it a contortionist spacecraft. The three struts that hold the telescope’s secondary mirror folded together. The tennis-court-size sunshade folded and rolled into a tight bundle that relied on a multi-step process for unpacking. Other deployable components included the telescope’s solar panels, an antenna, and radiators that shunt extra heat into space.

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JWST Deployment Sequence Before JWST can do its job, it must first get to space and execute one of the most complex deployment sequences ever attempted. Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

In order to see infrared light, JWST must block out heat from both the Sun and its own instruments. The first line of defense is a five-layer sunshield, which will keep the telescope chilled to -233 degrees Celsius (-388 degrees Fahrenheit). At a glance, JWST’s sunshield looks a little like the solar sail aboard The Planetary Society’s LightSail spacecraft . Although JWST’s sunshield isn’t used for propulsion, the Sun’s rays will still give it a push , so the spacecraft has a reflective trim tab that deploys at a different angle to help offset the forces of solar radiation.

But even a sunshield's not enough: JWST also needs to block out light from Earth and the Moon, which is difficult in Earth orbit. Therefore JWST is located at a special spot called L2, 1.5 million kilometers (932,000 miles) away. There, the Sun and Earth’s gravity balance out in a way that allows JWST to permanently keep the Sun, Earth, and Moon at its back while it observes the cosmos.

Once JWST arrived at L2 with its instruments and equipment deployed, the fun began. Light from distant objects bounces off its hexagonal mirrors, which are coated with a thin layer of gold to help it see better in the infrared. The light travels up to a secondary mirror, which focuses it into a beam the size of a dinner plate, sending it back through a hole in the center of the primary mirror. From there, it is focused further and can be sent through 4 different science instruments.

The farther away objects are, the longer it takes their light to reach us, meaning when we look at a distant galaxy, we are actually seeing what that galaxy looked like in the past. When you look at the Moon, you are seeing it as it existed 1 second ago. The sunlight warming your face on a beautiful day is eight minutes old. The Andromeda Galaxy, which looks like a smudge of light through binoculars , is actually 2.5 million years older than it appears now!

JWST can see galaxies up to 13.4 billion years old , just 400 million years after the Big Bang. Galaxies at this distance are quickly speeding away from us due to the expansion of the universe. This makes the wavelength of their light longer due to the Doppler effect — the same phenomenon that causes an ambulance siren to sound higher-pitched as it approaches you and lower-pitched after it passes you.

Long-wavelength light from objects formed even closer to the Big Bang is shifted deep into the infrared; in some cases beyond Hubble’s capabilities. JWST may be able to see objects as far back as 100 million years after the Big Bang, which will help us better understand our cosmic origin story.

Learn more Exoplanets, worlds orbiting other stars How to search for exoplanets Our exoplanets projects

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Dear James Webb Space Telescope: How you will show us the future

An award-winning science fiction author looks toward the myriad ways the innovative mission will change our understanding of the cosmos.

Engineers work on the James Webb Space Telescope at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

Dear James Webb Space Telescope,

You're going to change everything. When you finally launch in March 2021 (we hope), you're going to shine a light on where we came from and where we might end up living.

We've waited a long time for you; your original target launch date was all the way back in 2007. But I know all about taking a long time to get ready to go out—and when you finally make your appearance, you're going to be beautiful , with your 25-foot golden mirror and your five-layer sunshield. But you’ll be hard at work, too: You'll hang there in a stable orbit, one million miles away from Earth at the L2 Lagrange point, as you gaze out into space.

You'll see things that nobody from Earth, and none of our telescopes, have ever seen before: the first light of the universe, the birth of stars, and gravity’s assembly of galaxies . Your infrared telescope will be able to witness star formation even through dense clouds of gas, and you will detect objects so far away, their original ultraviolet glow has shifted down to infrared by the time it gets to us, billions of years and sextillions of miles later.

I can't even wrap my mind around the feats of engineering that have gone into your construction. Several new technologies had to be invented to make you work, including the new material for your sunshield and the software that'll keep you orbiting the L2 Lagrange point. Packing those innovations into a rocket was a masterstroke, too: When you (eventually) blast off from French Guyana, your huge mirror and your sunshield will be folded up inside an Ariane 5 rocket . Once you reach space, you’ll unfurl yourself in a complex, week-long sequence with little margin for error.

And once you're up there and fully in position, we're going to learn so much about the universe from the pictures and data you'll send back. We'll finally be able to peer inside the Eagle Nebula's famous Pillars of Creation . We'll be able to study some of the bodies in our own solar system in a new way, including Mars, Saturn, and Saturn’s largest moon, Titan .

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But those aren't why I'm dying for you to get up there and start doing your job. There's one particular reason why I'm counting the days until March 2021: exoplanets.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the bodies in our solar system, but there's something about the light of a different sun that captures my imagination. The idea of looking up in the sky and seeing two suns, or a sun that never changes position, or a light that shines in different wavelengths, is just amazing.

By spotting the "wobble" that stars feel from planets that orbit them, you’ll be able to measure planetary masses. And by watching closely, you’ll be able to see how a planet’s atmosphere absorbs the light of its parent star, which will let you deduce its chemical composition. In this way, your infrared camera may be able to detect the presence of specific molecules, such as water. Will you be the first instrument to see signs of alien life , perhaps in the form of a planet shrouded in both carbon dioxide and methane?

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When I was doing research for my recent novel, The City in the Middle of the Night , your name came up a lot. City takes place on a tidally locked world called January, meaning that there's a permanent day side and night side, and one side of January always faces its sun. Astronomers believe that tidally locked worlds are common outside of our solar system , especially when you look at planets that are in the habitable zones of their stars.

As I researched City , I couldn’t help but imagine what it might be like to live on a planet where the day and the night are places, rather than times. What would it be like to live under a sky that hardly ever changes until you walk from day to night? What kind of plant life would flourish in a sun’s unchanging glare? Where would humans live: the day side, the night side, or just the thin strip of twilight between them? Would these planets even have atmospheres at all, or were they stripped away during a violent tantrum of stellar flares early in their home stars’ lives?

Fast Facts: James Webb Space Telescope

Agency: NASA, ESA & CSA

Expected Launch Date: March 2021

Launch Vehicle: Ariane 5 ECA

Launch Mass: 13,668 lbs (6,200 kg)

Power Source: Solar array

Primary Mirror Diameter: 21.3 ft (6.5 m)

We’re still learning so much about these worlds—divided between unmoving areas of darkness and light—and so many others, making remarkable progress in a short amount of time. It's only been in the past 30 years that we've started detecting exoplanets successfully, and only 10 years since we launched the Kepler space telescope to search for Earth-size planets around other stars. So far, we've found more than 4,000 planets in other star systems, barely scratching the surface on the planet count in our galaxy alone.

Though we can predict conditions on exoplanets with increasing sophistication, there's no substitute for hard data—and thanks to you, the universe will surely sneak up and surprise us. One thing I kept hearing from scientists is that they'll be shocked if your data don’t upend their theoretical models. Everybody's holding their breath, waiting for your many revelations .

Perhaps your biggest revelation would come from a familiar sight: something that looked very much like our Earth, but light-years away. The idea of safe harbor out there in the universe—the home of aliens looking back at us, or perhaps an interstellar oasis for future humans—is endlessly alluring.

You're going to help us keep that dream alive, James Webb Space Telescope. Even as you help us to understand the very beginnings of time, you're also going to light the way to our wildest dreams for the future. I can't wait until you get started.

Yours wonderingly, Charlie

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James webb space telescope: the epic exploration journey already in the making.

Emily Furfaro

By Thomas Zurbuchen, Associate Administrator, NASA Science Mission Directorate

As a child, my favorite stories told of explorers and seafarers — humans driven by hope, facing insurmountable odds for the benefit of humanity. They all faced complex challenges, even human tolls, and their journeys often went very differently than these pioneers had planned. Their stories still captivate me today. The James Webb Space Telescope has the same elements as these stories: Purposeful exploration, elation and desperation, failure and victory. Slated to launch in 2021, it represents more than just an unprecedented piece of technology that has taken many years to develop. Once in space, Webb will be our seafarer on the grandest of adventures, through space and time. The leap in exploration is so big that it represents civilization-scale science – science that not only changes what we know, but also how we think about the night sky and our place in the cosmos.

If successful, Webb will look back 13.5 billion years and reveal clues to the intricate celestial dance that led to the first stars and galaxies. While we have some ideas about how various pieces came together leading to our cosmic origins, Webb will transform our understanding of the universe and replace our theories with real, tangible data. It will also reveal the atmospheres of planets around other stars, allowing us to compare these alien worlds with our own and explore whether these far-flung destinations could truly be habitable.

The telescope’s journey started when it was formally discussed as a concept in 1989 – barely more than a glimmer in scientists’ eyes. Since then, some of the greatest minds of our time around the world have collaborated on this project. There was no map to follow on this exceptional journey, but the hope of learning about our history and place in the universe united three space agencies. Today, experts from over 14 countries and 120 different universities and research organizations are on a quest to make sure every inch of Webb is ready for the most complex deployment of any spacecraft in the unforgiving environment of space.

By many measures, Webb is the most complex and challenging science mission of modern times. The mission depends on more than 10 entirely new technologies, including unprecedented infrared detectors and a novel tennis-court-size sunshield, comprised of five layers. What’s more, the spacecraft has more than 300 single points of failure, each of which could end the mission prematurely or severely degrade its performance. By comparison, NASA’s Curiosity rover, which landed on Mars in 2012, had less than one-third the number of single points of failure and cost less than half as much. It takes a lot of courage to accept the possibility of failure when the stakes are this high. That’s why we develop robust designs, are very focused during development and perform rigorous tests at all levels of assembly to ensure that we have a highly reliable science observatory.

We are already reaping rewards through Webb’s technologies today. While measuring the shape of Webb’s mirrors in the manufacturing process, engineers developed improvements that are being applied to the field of ophthalmology. Eye doctors once had to wait hours to get detailed information about the shape of a patient’s eye. Now, thanks to Webb’s innovative team, it takes a matter of seconds. These innovations have led to better diagnosis of eye diseases and potentials for improved surgery.

Moreover, early versions of Webb’s near-infrared detectors, essential to seeing back billions of years in the universe’s past, have already been used in four other NASA missions and many telescopes on Earth. Science is already moving forward thanks to the building of Webb – and it hasn’t even gotten off the ground.

Just like the explorers and seafarers of my childhood, space explorers working on Webb are a breed apart – a different kind of human envisioning a world at the very edge of what is possible. Webb, like so many adventures grounded in hope, has been challenging, and we have learned many important lessons along the way. As one of my favorite explorers Ernest Shackleton once said, “Difficulties are just things to overcome, after all.”

I have no doubt that Webb’s journey – ambitious, risky, and nerve-racking as it may be – will be worth it.  As we come closer to Webb’s ride to space, where this telescope leaves our terrestrial shores and wades into the cosmic ocean, we will begin again the very exploration that drove the work of tens of thousands, and will affect the lives of billions. 

Our story is just beginning.

Originally published in the Spring 2019 issue of The Explorers Journal .

JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE

Goddard space flight center, james webb space telescope.

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Image Comparison Info:

• The chaotic merging galaxies II ZW 96 have been examined in two distinct wavelengths in these images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.
• The image on the left was taken by Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys and gives a view over the visible-light spectrum of this merger, clearly showing the starburst systems that have formed between the two galactic cores with their older stars.
• The image on the right , Webb’s image from the Near-InfraRed Camera shines particularly brightly in infrared light. The star-forming regions which have been activated by the galactic tumult are particularly luminous in the infrared, which placed ZW II 96 as one of Webb’s first targets.
• Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Armus, A. Evans; the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

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Lesson of the Day: ‘What We Know About Unfolding the James Webb Space Telescope’

In this lesson, students will learn about the history and journey of the most powerful observatory in space and what it might discover. Then, they will research a question of their own about the universe.

By Jeremy Engle

Lesson Overview

Featured Article: “ What We Know About Unfolding the James Webb Space Telescope ” by Joey Roulette and Dennis Overbye

After $10 billion and years of delays, the James Webb Space Telescope lifted off on Christmas Day from a European launch site in French Guiana on its way to a point a million miles away, on the other side of the moon. Having now arrived at its destination one month later, the Webb Telescope will spend years observing the cosmos. Its extraordinary job is to look back in time at the first stars and galaxies.

The Times science reporter Dennis Overbye wrote just before the launch: “There are only a few times in the history of a species when it gains the know-how, the audacity and the tools to greatly advance the interrogation of its origins. Humanity is at such a moment, astronomers say.”

In this lesson, you will learn about the history and journey of the most powerful observatory in space and what it might discover. In Going Further activities, we invite you to consider the significance of the mission and to come up with your own questions about the universe that can be used as inspiration for our 3rd Annual STEM Writing Contest .

Part 1: Take a quiz.

Have you ever wondered how the universe began? Or whether life exists on other planets? Do you ever worry about our Earth being swallowed by a black hole?

Let’s begin with a short quiz on the wondrous cosmos (Don’t worry; it’s not graded.)

How Much Do You Know About the Universe?

How old is the universe?

540 million years old

3.5 billion years old

4.6 billion years old

13.8 billion years old

Part 2: Watch a video.

Before reading the featured article, watch the nine-minute video below: “ James Webb Telescope to Capture First Images of Big Bang! ” by Voyager. Then, respond to the prompts below in writing or through discussion with a partner:

What are three things you learned about the James Webb Space Telescope? How will it act as a time machine?

What are two things you learned about the universe?

What is one question you have?

Questions for Writing and Discussion

Read the feature article , then answer the following questions:

1. What is the James Webb Space Telescope, and why is it such a big deal for astronomers and all of us? What are the goals of its mission?

2. The Webb telescope is now “fully deployed.” What technical challenges did it face on its journey, including “344 points of failure”? Describe the complex unfolding process in your own words.

3. How does Webb compare with the Hubble Space Telescope? How was it designed to probe a crucial stretch of early cosmic history, known to astronomers as the dark ages? What role will infrared light play?

4. What is your reaction to the article? What did you find most fascinating, surprising or significant? Do you think the Webb telescope is worth 25 years of development and the cost of $10 billion? Does learning about its launch and mission make you more interested in space?

5. Make a prediction (or two): What do you think the Webb telescope will find? Do you think it will find evidence of life on other planets? The origin of black holes? The secrets to the birth of the Milky Way and the cosmos? Be bold — make some $10 billion predictions!

Going Further

Option 1: What questions do you have about the universe?

How are stars formed? How do they die? Do galaxies ever collide? Is the universe finite or infinite, and what would either mean? What is dark matter? Is it as sinister as it sounds? Are there multiple universes, like ones we’ve seen in “Spider-Man: Far From Home”? What questions do you still have about the universe? What else do you want to know?

You might begin by looking at The Times’s Space and Astronomy topic page or one of the stories below about the Milky Way and beyond: Then, write or discuss with a partner: What is your reaction to the article? How did it add to or change your understanding of the beauty and mystery of the universe? What was the most fascinating, provocative or memorable thing you learned? What questions do you still have about our cosmos?

A New Map of the Sun’s Local Bubble .

This Black Hole Blew a Hole in the Cosmos

Andromeda Is Coming for Our Milky Way Galaxy, Eventually .

Beyond the Milky Way, a Galactic Wall .

Why the Big Bang Produced Something Rather Than Nothing

Six Stars, Six Eclipses: ‘The Fact That It Exists Blows My Mind’

An Electrifying View of the Heart of the Milky Way

Does the Universe Still Need Einstein?

A Quantum of Solace

If you have more time …

Want an additional challenge? Use your question and research as the basis for an entry to our Third Annual STEM Writing Contest, in which we challenge students to choose an issue or question in science, technology, engineering, math or health and write an engaging 500-word explanation of it. The contest runs from Feb. 2 to March 9.

Option 2: Why does the James Webb Space Telescope matter to the world — and you?

In “ The James Webb Space Telescope and a Quest Every Human Shares ,” Mr. Overbye writes about the observatory’s mission and its significance:

There was no military or economic advantage in devoting 25 years and $10 billion of national treasure to build a telescope, of all things, devoted not to looking down at our enemies, but out across time and space, trying to decipher the nature and condition of our origins. We all share the quest even if we all don’t get the time and chance to obsess about it.

We stagger upward under the weight of our knowledge of our own mortality. In the face of the ultimate abyss that is destiny, we can find honor and dignity in the fact that we played the cosmic game to win, trying to know and feel as much as we can in the brief centuries allotted to us.

Read the entire essay. Then, respond to the following questions in writing or through discussion with a partner: Do you agree with Mr. Overbye that “We all share the quest”? How important to you is it to search for answers about the nature and conditions of our origins? Does it matter if there is no military or economic advantage to be gained through the Webb telescope’s mission? In your opinion, what will humanity gain if we are able to answer many of our long-awaited questions about the universe?

Additional Teaching and Learning Opportunities:

Learn more about the history and mission of the James Webb Space Telescope : The Webb is an ambitious collaboration venture between NASA, the Canadian Space Agency and the European Space Agency. Find out more by checking out The Times’s Space and Astronomy topic page or these recent Times articles:

Webb Telescope Prepares to Ascend, With an Eye Toward Our Origins

A World Divided by Covid and Other Ills United to Explore Space

James Webb Space Telescope Launches on Journey to See the Dawn of Starlight

Or visit NASA’s website for more news, resources and activities.

Make your phone into a personal planetarium : To understand the observation powers of the James Webb Space Telescope and how it will assist astronomers in their research, try these two augmented-reality experiences created by The Times, using Instagram on a smartphone:

“ What Will The James Webb Space Telescope See? ” will show you where in space and time the Webb will look, using a 3-D map of the observable universe. It plots some of the spacecraft’s early targets, including potentially Earthlike exoplanets and the earliest known galaxies.

“ In Search of First Galaxies ” shows how the Webb will get a visual boost from the power of gravitational lensing. Place a virtual black hole in your space and watch how it behaves like a magnifying glass on your surroundings. This same technique will help astronomers study the early universe.

Keep track of what happens in our solar system and all around the universe: Never miss a rocket launch, astronaut landing or other event that is out of this world by signing up for The Times’s Space and Astronomy Calendar .

Want more Lessons of the Day? You can find them all here .

Jeremy Engle joined The Learning Network as a staff editor in 2018 after spending more than 20 years as a classroom humanities and documentary-making teacher, professional developer and curriculum designer working with students and teachers across the country. More about Jeremy Engle

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The James Webb Space Telescope’s Vision of the Cosmos

For the world’s most powerful camera, translating invisible light is a matter of art and science.

In the mid-nineteenth century, William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the inventors of photography, proposed a cutting-edge experiment. Scientists were beginning to study light beyond human vision, light we now describe as infrared and ultraviolet, and Talbot conceived of a way to photograph with these invisible rays. Although photography was less than a decade old, and he never tried the method himself, Talbot was confident that “the eye of the camera would see plainly where the human eye would find nothing but darkness.” Jump forward to the twenty first century, and images from the James Webb Space Telescope deliver on that promise. The telescope, which was launched into orbit in 2021 and relies on methods that echo those proposed by Talbot, observes infrared light with seemingly impressive ease, and its vividly colored, highly detailed images show us what had previously been hidden from view. But to depict what the infrared camera sees plainly requires another jump, a leap from detecting the presence of light to translating it for our eyes.

With its view of the Pillars of Creation , the Webb revisits a star-forming region in the Eagle Nebula made familiar by Hubble Space Telescope images. But now we see more—more of everything. The three immense columns of gas and dust glow with silvery light, highlighted by areas in brilliant red. With close study, one finds stunningly complex and detailed forms within the columns. These are not monoliths but vast and varied topographies that invite exploration. The sky in the background is decorated with an array of colors: deep blue in the lower left, violets and purples in the middle, and fiery orange along the top. And stars, thousands of points of light in various sizes and hues, speckle the entire field of view.

The appearance of these images depends on careful choices by astronomers and image processors, who adjust contrast, clean up flaws, and choose how to orient the celestial scenes. These decisions help to make evident the scientifically interesting aspects of the observations. They also align these views of distant nebulae, stars, and galaxies with our aesthetic standards and expectations, the visual language we have learned through looking at pictures of our world. The ideal translation then reads in two tongues, as scientifically valid and aesthetically compelling.

The delicate balance of science and aesthetics is most evident in the colors. The Webb’s cameras record monochromatic observations, each taken through a filter that registers light at a particular wavelength. To create a color image, astronomers and image processors digitally combine at least three different observations together, assigning a unique hue to each one. The relative wavelengths guide the color choices: typically, blue is assigned to the observation that corresponds to the shortest wavelength of light, red to the one at the longest wavelength, and green to the one in the middle. When image processors follow the convention exactly, colors can make visible the physical properties of the nebula for those who know the key.

However, the translation is often more complex than such a straightforward example suggests. Webb’s resplendent Pillars of Creation incorporates nine observations, and image processors introduced other hues—purple, yellow, cyan, and orange—to distinguish between them. The practice of mapping color and relative wavelength guides the choices, but as the colors multiply and combine, it becomes much more difficult to interpret just by looking. Instead, the Webb images’ rainbow palette delivers something more esoteric: a glimpse, at least in translation, of the unimaginable hues that lie beyond red.

The photographer Minor White, writing in a journal entry from the 1950s, asked: “How far can camerawork go toward making manifest the invisible? That is its work, but how far can it go?” White experimented with infrared film around the same time, photographing the rural landscapes of upstate New York. In Road and Poplar Trees (1955), a banal, even clichéd scene of a poplar-lined lane becomes subtly and compellingly strange. The leaves of the trees vibrate with an animated brilliance. Dark shadows create unsettling gashes along the pathway. Much like the astronomical images, the representation of light in White’s photograph can be interpreted in multiple ways. It makes the physical presence or absence of infrared light visible and also invites us to see the mysterious in the familiar.

For the Webb images, the translation operates in the opposite direction, bringing the alien and otherworldly down to earth and to our human eyes. Since their first release in July 2022, the telescope’s images have been met with enthusiasm and excitement, especially for how plainly the camera sees. But it’s easy to forget or overlook how far the telescope extends human sight and the strangeness of that experience. Over its lifetime, the Webb will help astronomers address a range of scientific questions. Its images have already responded to another question, one that has engaged photographers as deeply as it has scientists: How to represent what we cannot see?

This article originally appeared in  Aperture , issue 252, “ Accra .”

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Essay: James Webb telescope – a scientist explains what its first, amazing images show, and how it will change astronomy

• MARTIN BARSTOW David Adams
• July 14, 2022
• No Comments

Following the release of the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope this week, MARTIN BARSTOW, professor of astrophyics and space science at the University of Leicester, explains – in an article first published on The Conversation – what they show…

After decades of development and many trials and frustrations along the way, the James Webb telescope has finally started to deliver what it came for. On 12th July, NASA released the first scientific observations made by the suite of instruments carried on board the mission, marking what we eagerly anticipate will be the beginning of a new era in astronomy .

After the nail-biting launch on Christmas Day, a series of critical deployments followed to open up the telescope and its sun-shade. If any of these operations had failed, James Webb would have been an unusable disaster. But the program was perfectly executed, a process that ran more smoothly and successfully than any one of us had dared hope, let alone expect.

A star forming region in the Milky Way. PICTURE: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

This is not just a testament to the skill of the engineers, technicians and scientists in the project. It also highlights the tremendous importance of the testing program carried out on Earth to verify the procedures and which occasionally revealed problems that needed to be fixed before launch. While this sometimes resulted in schedule slippages and cost increases, it has ultimately produced a perfect telescope.

“The new ‘early release observations’, selected by an international committee of representatives from NASA, ESA (European Space Agency), CSA (Canadian Space Agency), and the Space Telescope Science Institute, are part of a program designed to highlight the wide range of science the telescope will carry out.”

During July, the telescope moved from its checkout and testing phase to operation, as the amazing observatory it has long been planned to be. Those of us who have been involved in the journey and will work on the data, can hardly wait.

Crisp images The new “early release observations”, selected by an international committee of representatives from NASA, ESA (European Space Agency), CSA (Canadian Space Agency), and the Space Telescope Science Institute, are part of a program designed to highlight the wide range of science the telescope will carry out.

It is very exciting to see the new images – I was not prepared for the level of crispness and fine detail that can be seen. It’s a joy to finally have such high-quality data.

Unveiled by US President Joe Biden, the stunning image of SMACS 0723 , a cluster of thousands of galaxies, was released on 11th July. The massive foreground galaxy groups magnify and distort the light of objects behind them, helping us to peer back in time at very faint objects.

The image shows the galaxy cluster as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. But more distant galaxies in the image (the ones which appear stretched) are about 13 billion years old – and we already have more data on them than we have on any other ancient galaxy.

Images such as this will help us understand how the first stars and galaxies formed. Some of these may be among the most distant objects known, from the beginning of the universe. The picture is a composite “colour” image made from observations made at different wavelengths. It was taken by the telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam).

SMACS 0723. PICTURE: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

James Webb has also caught a glimpse of Stephan’s Quintet , a group of five galaxies that are merging some 290 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. The image also suggests there’s a supermassive black hole at the centre, and shows stars being born. The data will tell us more about how galaxies evolve and the rate at which supermassive black holes grow.

Stephen’s quintet.  PICTURE:  NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

The next picture shows the Carina Nebula , seen in the image below, which is one of the largest and brightest nebulas (clouds of dust and gas in which stars are born). James Webb can probe deep inside dust in the infrared light, to reveal the inside of the stellar nursery – which we’ve never seen before – to discover more about how stars are born.

The Carina Nebula is located approximately 7,600 light-years away in the southern constellation Carina. The image shows hundreds of completely new stars (every dot of light is a star), and jets and bubbles created by them. We can also see details that we cannot yet explain.

A star-forming region in the Milky Way. PICTURE: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

The next, spectacular image is of the Southern Ring or “Eight-Burst” nebula, a planetary nebula, which is an expanding cloud of gas, surrounding a dying star, or in this case two dying stars orbiting each other. It is nearly half a light-year in diameter and is located approximately 2,000 light years away from Earth.

The foamy orange shell in the image is molecular hydrogen (a gas which forms when two hydrogen atoms bond together), whereas the blue centre is an electrically charged gas. In the right-hand image, you can see the two dying stars in the centre, giving us an opportunity to study stellar death in unprecedented detail.

Southern Ring Nebula.  PICTURE:  NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

The new data is the result of months of painstaking measurement and testing to make the James Webb ready for use as a scientific tool following deployment. The first steps were to focus and align the images of each of the mirror segments. Each of the telescope’s scientific instruments – NIRCam, The Near InfraRed Spectrograph (NIRSpec) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) – were also switched on and tested.

All these instruments, which look at deep space in different wavelengths, had to be cooled down, along with the telescope, otherwise they would radiate background heat which would interfere with the sensitive observations of astronomical objects. The last to be turned on was MIRI, which operates at the lowest temperature, just seven degrees above absolute zero, which took several months to achieve.

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The size of a telescope – its aperture – is the key thing that decides the ultimate quality of the images and the detail that can be observed. Bigger is better. Large telescopes with apertures up to ten metres in diameter have been constructed on the ground.

However, the interfering effects of the atmosphere, which disturb the light reaching the telescope, make it hard to achieve the ultimate resolution. Also, on Earth, background light from the night sky limits the telescope sensitivity, the faintest objects we can see.

Martin Barstow  is professor of astrophysics and space science at the  University of Leicester . This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

• Carina Nebula , CSA. , ESA , images , James Webb Space Telescope , JWST , NASA , Near-Infrared Camera , NIRCam , SMACS 0723 , Southern Ring , space , Space Telescope Science Institute , Stephan’s Quintet

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Astrophysics

Title: the james webb space telescope.

Abstract: The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a large (6.6m), cold (50K), infrared-optimized space observatory that will be launched early in the next decade. The observatory will have four instruments: a near-infrared camera, a near-infrared multi-object spectrograph, and a tunable filter imager will cover the wavelength range, 0.6 to 5.0 microns, while the mid-infrared instrument will do both imaging and spectroscopy from 5.0 to 29 microns. The JWST science goals are divided into four themes. The End of the Dark Ages: First Light and Reionization theme seeks to identify the first luminous sources to form and to determine the ionization history of the early universe. The Assembly of Galaxies theme seeks to determine how galaxies and the dark matter, gas, stars, metals, morphological structures, and active nuclei within them evolved from the epoch of reionization to the present day. The Birth of Stars and Protoplanetary Systems theme seeks to unravel the birth and early evolution of stars, from infall on to dust-enshrouded protostars to the genesis of planetary systems. The Planetary Systems and the Origins of Life theme seeks to determine the physical and chemical properties of planetary systems including our own, and investigate the potential for the origins of life in those systems. To enable these observations, JWST consists of a telescope, an instrument package, a spacecraft and a sunshield. The telescope consists of 18 beryllium segments, some of which are deployed. The segments will be brought into optical alignment on-orbit through a process of periodic wavefront sensing and control. The JWST operations plan is based on that used for previous space observatories, and the majority of JWST observing time will be allocated to the international astronomical community through annual peer-reviewed proposal opportunities.

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James Webb Space Telescope gets to the heart of a smoking starburst galaxy (images)

The "Cigar Galaxy" Messier 82 is ablaze with intense star formation, and the JWST's infrared capabilities are getting to its very core.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has zoomed in to the heart of the Cigar Galaxy, a region of space that is ablaze with an explosive bout of star-birth.

This starburst galaxy, also known as Messier 82 (M82), has a compact but turbulent environment at its core that could give scientists a clearer picture of how stars are born en masse, and how extreme environments shape the galaxies around them.

Located around 12 million light-years away in the constellation of Ursa Major , M82 is forming stars 10 times faster than our own relatively quiet galaxy, the Milky Way . The team imaged the core of this starburst galaxy with the JWST's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to investigate what conditions are driving the formation of infant stars.

Related: James Webb Space Telescope spots hints of exomoons forming in infant star system

"M82 has garnered a variety of observations over the years because it can be considered as the prototypical starburst galaxy," Alberto Bolatto, team leader and University of Maryland researcher, said in a statement . "Both Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes have observed this target. 

"With the JWST's size and resolution, we can look at this star-forming galaxy and see all of this beautiful new detail."

sHow the JWST sees right through starbursts

Star formation is common across the cosmos, but has been able to maintain an air of mystery because gas and dust that forms the raw material necessary for star formation also effectively shrouds the process.

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While gas and dust are very efficient at absorbing visible light, however, infrared light is able to slip through this material. That means, with its powerful and sensitive infrared view of the cosmos, the JWST is the perfect instrument to get right to the heart of star birth.

The NIRCam images collected by Bolatto and colleagues also benefited from a special mode that prevented the bright infant stars at the heart of M82 from overwhelming the instrument.

The JWST M82 shortwave infrared light image shows dark, reddish-brown tendrils of dust weaving their way through the white, cigar smoke, glowing core of M82. Small green specks in the image represent regions of iron that remain from supernova explosions of now-dead massive stars . Red-looking patches show areas where molecular hydrogen is being heated by radiation from young stars.

"This image shows the power of the JWST," team member and University of Arizona scientist Rebecca Levy said in the statement. "Every single white dot in this image is either a star or a star cluster. We can start to distinguish all of these tiny point sources, which enables us to acquire an accurate count of all the star clusters in this galaxy."

A smoking cigar's galactic winds

When the JWST's NIRCam imaged M82's core in infrared light, the star-forming region took on a strikingly fresh visage. Suddenly, gaseous streams of galactic winds appeared, stretching further from the galaxy's main starburst core then previously noticed, almost like a network of blood vessels extending from a biological heart rather than a galactic one.

This galactic wind is powered by star formation and supernova deaths of older stars. Like lifeblood pumped through blood vessels in the human body, the galactic wind moves elements around that facilitate galactic growth through further star formation, thus strongly influencing the body around it. 

NIRCam was able to trace the structure of these galactic winds as they emit sooty chemical molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) . Because PAHs are small dust grains that survive in cool regions but are destroyed by hotter temperatures, this revealed how cold and hot components interact within the wind.

The fine structure of galactic winds in M82 was something the team was not expecting to uncover — nor were they anticipating any similarities in the shape of PAH emission and structure of hot, ionized gas tendrils. 

"It was unexpected to see the PAH emission resemble ionized gas," Bolatto explained. "PAHs are not supposed to live very long when exposed to such a strong radiation field, so perhaps they are being replenished all the time. It challenges our theories and shows us that further investigation is required."

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The team hopes that further JWST observations of M82 and other starburst galaxies could help answer some lingering questions about star birth. The scientists will also combine these new images with complementary large-scale images of the Cigar Galaxy and its galactic winds.

Light spectra from this galaxy should help astronomers determine the accurate ages of the star clusters in M82. This could, in turn, reveal how long each phase of star formation lasts in starburst galactic environments.

"With these amazing JWST images and our upcoming spectra, we can study how exactly the strong winds and shock fronts from young stars and supernovas can remove the very gas and dust from which new stars are forming," team member and European Space Agency (ESA) scientist Torsten Böker said in the statement. "A detailed understanding of this ‘feedback’ cycle is important for theories of how the early universe evolved because compact starbursts such as the one in M82 were very common at high redshift."

The team's research has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal.

Join our Space Forums to keep talking space on the latest missions, night sky and more! And if you have a news tip, correction or comment, let us know at: [email protected].

Robert Lea is a science journalist in the U.K. whose articles have been published in Physics World, New Scientist, Astronomy Magazine, All About Space, Newsweek and ZME Science. He also writes about science communication for Elsevier and the European Journal of Physics. Rob holds a bachelor of science degree in physics and astronomy from the U.K.’s Open University. Follow him on Twitter @sciencef1rst.

The James Webb Space Telescope has solved a lot of puzzles, and created a few more

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope mission — Live updates

Watch an exclusive clip from the CNN' 'Space Shuttle Columbia: The Final Flight' finale (video)

• bwana4swahili I've shot this galaxy many times. It is really quite a unique stellar target. Cigar Galaxy (M82) Reply
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Could a telescope see the beginning of time? An astronomer explains

If the James Webb telescope was 10 times more powerful, could we see the beginning of time? – Sam H., age 12, Prosper, Texas

T he James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST for short, is one of the most advanced telescopes ever built . Planning for JWST began over 25 years ago, and construction efforts spanned over a decade. It was launched into space on Dec. 25, 2021, and within a month arrived at its final destination: 930,000 miles away from Earth. Its location in space allows it a relatively unobstructed view of the universe .

The telescope design was a global effort , led by NASA, and intended to push the boundaries of astronomical observation with revolutionary engineering. Its mirror is massive – about 21 feet (6.5 meters) in diameter. That's nearly three times the size of the Hubble Space Telescope, which launched in 1990 and is still working today.

It's a telescope's mirror that allows it to collect light. JWST's is so big that it can "see" the faintest and farthest galaxies and stars in the universe. Its state-of-the-art instruments can reveal information about the composition, temperature and motion of these distant cosmic objects.

As an astrophysicist , I'm continually looking back in time to see what stars, galaxies and supermassive black holes looked like when their light began its journey toward Earth, and I'm using that information to better understand their growth and evolution. For me, and for thousands of space scientists, the James Webb Space Telescope is a window to that unknown universe.

Just how far back can JWST peer into the cosmos and into the past? About 13.5 billion years.

Time travel

A telescope does not show stars, galaxies and exoplanets as they are right now. Instead, astronomers are catching a glimpse of how they were in the past . It takes time for light to travel across space and reach our telescopes. In essence, that means a look into space is also a trip back in time.

This is even true for objects that are quite close to us. The light you see from the Sun left it about 8 minutes, 20 seconds earlier. That's how long it takes for the Sun's light to travel to Earth .

You can easily do the math on this. All light – whether sunlight, a flashlight or a light bulb in your house – travels at 186,000 miles (almost 300,000 kilometers) per second. That's just over 11 million miles (about 18 million kilometers) per minute. The Sun is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from Earth. That comes out to about 8 minutes, 20 seconds.

But the farther away something is, the longer its light takes to reach us. That's why the light we see from Proxima Centauri , the closest star to us aside from our Sun, is 4 years old; that is, it's about 25 trillion miles (approximately 40 trillion kilometers) away from Earth, so that light takes just over four years to reach us. Or, as scientists like to say, four light years .

Most recently, JWST observed Earendel, one of the farthest stars ever detected . The light that JWST sees from Earendel is about 12.9 billion years old.

The James Webb Space Telescope is looking much farther back in time than previously possible with other telescopes, such as the Hubble Space Telescope . For example, although Hubble can see objects 60,000 times fainter than the human eye is able, the JWST can see objects almost nine times fainter than even Hubble can .

The Big Bang

But is it possible to see back to the beginning of time?

The Big Bang is a term used to define the beginning of our universe as we know it. Scientists believe it occurred about 13.8 billion years ago. It is the most widely accepted theory among physicists to explain the history of our universe.

The name is a bit misleading, however, because it suggests that some sort of explosion, like fireworks, created the universe. The Big Bang more closely represents the appearance of rapidly expanding space everywhere in the universe. The environment immediately after the Big Bang was similar to a cosmic fog that covered the universe, making it hard for light to travel beyond it. Eventually, galaxies, stars and planets started to grow.

That's why this era in the universe is called the "cosmic dark ages." As the universe continued to expand, the cosmic fog began to rise , and light was eventually able to travel freely through space. In fact, a few satellites have observed the light left by the Big Bang, about 380,000 years after it occurred. These telescopes were built to detect the splotchy leftover glow from the Big Bang , whose light can be tracked in the microwave band.

However, even 380,000 years after the Big Bang, there were no stars and galaxies. The universe was still a very dark place. The cosmic dark ages wouldn't end until a few hundred million years later, when the first stars and galaxies began to form.

The James Webb Space Telescope was not designed to observe as far back as the Big Bang, but instead to see the period when the first objects in the universe began to form and emit light. Before this time period, there is little light for the James Webb Space Telescope to observe, given the conditions of the early universe and the lack of galaxies and stars.

Peering back to the time period close to the Big Bang is not simply a matter of having a larger mirror – astronomers have already done it using other satellites that observe microwave emission from very soon after the Big Bang . So, the James Webb Space Telescope observing the universe a few hundred million years after the Big Bang isn't a limitation of the telescope. Rather, that's actually the telescope's mission. It's a reflection of where in the universe we expect the first light from stars and galaxies to emerge.

By studying ancient galaxies, scientists hope to understand the unique conditions of the early universe and gain insight into the processes that helped them flourish. That includes the evolution of supermassive black holes, the life cycle of stars, and what exoplanets – worlds beyond our solar system – are made of.

Adi Foord , Assistant Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article .

The post Could a telescope see the beginning of time? An astronomer explains appeared first on Astronomy Magazine .

Space photo of the week: James Webb telescope reveals surprising starburst in ancient galaxy

New infrared observations from the James Webb Space Telescope unveil a galaxy far, far away that's creating new stars.

What it is: The irregular dwarf galaxy I Zwicky 18

Where it is: 59 million light-years away, in the constellation Ursa Major

When it was published: March 26, 2024

Why it's so special: The galaxy I Zwicky 18 may have an odd name, but it's the galaxy's odd appearance that has caught the attention of astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope ( JWST ).

This new image from JWST (also available as a zoomable version ) reveals that this irregular dwarf galaxy has undergone several sudden bursts of star formation, the European Space Agency (ESA) said in a description of the image . Its low content of heavy elements (those heavier than hydrogen and helium) makes it typical of the galaxies that existed in the early universe. It's also much smaller than the Milky Way .

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If you look at the galaxy's core, you can see two distinct bright areas studded with stars. It's thought that the youngest stars are in the northwest region. Both places are surrounded by brown filaments — gas bubbles heated by stellar winds and intense ultraviolet radiation emitted by young stars burning exceptionally hot, ESA said.

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One reason for these two lobes of young stars may be the presence of another nearby galaxy. You can see it below I Zwicky 18 in this image as a collection of blue stars. The small galaxy orbits its larger companion, and its gravitational influence may trigger star formation within it, scientists suspect.

I Zwicky 18 gets its name from its discoverer, Fritz Zwicky, the Swiss astronomer who discovered the galaxy in the 1930s.

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Almost as impressive as the photo is what exists behind I Zwicky 18 and its neighbor in this image. In the top-right corner is a star in front of the galaxy. But around it are hundreds of other oval-shaped galaxies in the background, some white and others tinted orange because they're so far away. (Reddish light has a longer wavelength.)

The image comes from a program designed to study the life cycle of dust in I Zwicky 18, building on observations in visible light by the Hubble Space Telescope . While Hubble found fainter, older red stars that hinted that stars were forming 1 billion to 10 billion years ago, JWST's infrared observations reveal much more recent star formation.

Jamie Carter is a freelance journalist and regular Live Science contributor based in Cardiff, U.K. He is the author of A Stargazing Program For Beginners and lectures on astronomy and the natural world. Jamie regularly writes for Space.com, TechRadar.com, Forbes Science, BBC Wildlife magazine and Scientific American, and many others. He edits WhenIsTheNextEclipse.com .

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