Launched a little more than a year ago, on December 25, 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope is returning dramatic pictures of faraway regions of the universe.
With a 21-inch mirror, the Webb Telescope is seven times as powerful as the Hubble Telescope. Its mission is to observe galaxies, exoplanets, and other object in the infrared range, which is invisible to the human eye.
Distant galaxies and objects are moving away from us as the universe expands. This stretches the light waves and lowers the frequency of visible light, turning it into infrared light.
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NASA:
“First Images from the
James Webb Space Telescope”
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Scientific American:
“Are the James Webb
Space Telescope’s Pictures ‘Real’?”
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NPR:
“How the James Webb Space Telescope
transformed astronomy this year”