A lot of folks, whether they’re NASA haters or not, were saying until Chrismas 2021 that NASA would call off the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). There’s no wonder why, however, as the space agency has postponed the lift-off several times.
We’re so glad that NASA managed to launch the telescope. It was definitely not a scenario where Webb was thrown into the deep end. The next-gen telescope has managed to bring a lot of exciting photos of the Universe already, and it shall continue likewise for plenty of time. The first photos that Webb captured even received an X-ray remake.
Targetting the Pillars of Creation using the NIRCam
Using its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) snapped a beautiful image of the Pillars of Creation, meaning a famous cosmic structure that was first photographed by Hubble over a quarter of a century ago. The Pillars of Creation represent elephant trunks of interstellar gas and dust located in the Eagle Nebula, meaning more than 6,500 light-years away from Earth.
On its Twitter account dedicated to Webb, NASA wrote:
This is what you’ve waited for.
Journey with us through Webb’s breathtaking view of the Pillars of Creation, where scores of newly formed stars glisten like dewdrops among floating, translucent columns of gas and dust:
This is what you’ve waited for.
Journey with us through Webb’s breathtaking view of the Pillars of Creation, where scores of newly formed stars glisten like dewdrops among floating, translucent columns of gas and dust: https://t.co/5ea1kCzU5x
Here’s your guided tour ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/jFiDDrMUPl
— NASA Hallo-Webb Telescope ???????????? (@NASAWebb) October 19, 2022
What’s fascinating is that the James Webb Space Telescope is considered the successor of Hubble. Webb is designed to be capable of looking deeper and more efficiently into the Universe than ever before and help humanity understand a lot more about galaxies, stars, and other cosmic objects.
Not once happened for astronomers to find a space object that looked beautiful from afar, but as soon as they zoomed in, it turned out that the devil was in the details. We can expect such situations to occur a lot during Webb’s quest to look into the depths of the Universe.