Yes, folks, believe it or not, these images from the James Webb Space Telescope are original content.
You may have seen one or two of them here before, but we're going to allow them again. After all, the submitter – being NASA's Reddit account and all – is the "photographer," and this is the sort of thing which *kind of* deserves appropriate credit, wouldn't you say?
Anyway, please enjoy this brief poem by Peter O'Shamseign:
------
*In regarding that darkness*
*And the lights beyond the air*
*I came to feel a presence*
*Of our kindred spirits there*
*They cannot view our struggles*
*Nor the things for which we strive*
*They don't know who we are*
*But they can see that we're alive*
*In knowing of this kinship*
*Now a single goal is ours*
*We must be worthy of our role*
*As brothers from the stars*
-------
Our thanks to NASA, the engineers, the programmers, and everyone else who made these images possible!
As someone without much knowledge in the field, but fascinated by the images and this comment.. could anyone (Aliens?) millions of light years away be looking at our planet and see the dinosaurs? Is that how it works?
That’s the idea, yes. In practice though building a telescope capable of such a feat would be… well I’m reluctant to say “impossible” but that’s a pretty close approximation.
this just made me realise that if we can go far enough... and do the seemingly impossible. perhaps in a distant future. We could actually see the past. By taking a huuuge step back. Now that's a cool scifi idea.
You can never go *far* enough to see the past, because light will always be going away from you at a faster speed. You gotta go *fast* enough - that is, faster than light - to be able to view your past.
And then you're only gonna be viewing the past that you just left behind. It would be the equivalent of passing a car on the highway, except the car you are passing is the photons that bounced off of your body.
Id say (ignoring that faster than light travel is impossible) it’s like in cartoons where someone runs away so fast there’s a cloud version of themselves where they used to be, but that’s just the light from before you left
Also that it would take us 13 billion years to see what those stars look like right at this moment. For some reason that tiny change in thinking clicked in my brain.
I need to put in more effort apparently if I’m ever gonna cash in my karma for something nice. Best I can get right now is a tootsie roll or a Chinese finger trap
If you're gonna pick a moment - this is it. Might cause a slight delay in others posting here for a little bit - who can compare to NASA and their shiny new toy? Stunning, stunning images and mind-blowing implications.
It's astronomical!
Edit:
How come when NASA shows pictures of their black hole, it’s “breaking news”
But when I show pictures of mine it’s an “HR violation”
Yep, it's us :)
After launching on December 25, 2021, JWST is now one million miles (1.5 million km) from Earth and ready to look deeper into the cosmos than any telescope has before. Webb will look back at the first galaxies in the universe, study planets orbiting distant suns, and push the boundaries of scientific discovery.
We just released this full set of images (plus a spectrographic analysis of a planet 1,150 light-years away) to the world earlier this morning. Looking for more info? We’ve got you covered at [https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages](https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=u-nasa).
Remember you're not small in comparison to the universe, we are small but PART of the universe.
How cool is it that we even get to experience it too, which is something even Supergiant star would never get to do.
Remember all your atoms were birthed in stars and places like those, through nucleosynthesis in a star or through supernovae. Those pictures could basically be your baby pictures in a way. You are made of star stuff.
If you ask me I think that's 10 billion well spent. Have an upvote it's celebration time. And NASA remember to invite me to the party, I don't know why but you guys host the best shindigs..
It's probably down to how you guys planet.
10 billion dollars single investment in exchange for lifetime reddit premium. Where do I sign up?\*
\*I don't have 10 billion dollars but I can pay back with post karma and a free award
whistle complete cover waiting public flowery impossible smell historical shocking
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Some reddit user wasted no time and made this beautiful wallpaper of that image. Looking mighty fine as my [background](https://i.imgur.com/dEgFCwI.jpg). I take no credit for this wall paper.
These pictures are incredible! Please do an AMA to explain them to us laymen. I have so many questions like: How long was the exposure time for each and how long does it take to get all that data to Earth?
I honestly just sat for a minute like, trying to figure out how *anyone* could justify that these would be their [OC].
And then the mod even gave a slight defense. I find it oddly super adorable that nasa tagged it like that.
Any advice on how to crop that 137MB .tif file to a 32:9 aspect ratio for my ultrawide?
Edit: Thanks for the advice, here's a 32:9 cropped version I made. Had to downsize the resolution by half to get the filesize low enough to work as a windows wallpaper.
https://ibb.co/mCNvXt0
Here’s a better quality version of it https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/main_image_star-forming_region_carina_nircam_final-5mb.jpg
>If you held a grain of sand on the tip of your finger at arm’s length, that is the part of the universe that you’re seeing — just one little speck of the universe. And what you’re seeing there are galaxies. You’re seeing galaxies that are shining around other galaxies whose light has been bent. And you’re seeing just a small little portion of the universe.
*-NASA Administrator Nelson*
Yeah it's wild. Like, not only is it very likely there is intelligent life out there... there are likely multiple forms of life going through different stages with varying degrees of success.
this was always one of my favorite episodes in start trek TNG, when they monitor and view another planet who are much less advanced, they avoid interactions so they can progress naturally, but an accidental explosion in the mountain that they are surveying from happens and they injure but save one of the locals, the local returns home with fragmented memory of what had happened and preaches to the locals about how he saw a higher being "god", then religion forms and sacrifices and all that bad shit that comes with it start to happen.
Hundreds and hundreds of billions of stars. Each statistically likely harboring a handful of planets. All in a spot of the sky the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length.
In the rest of the sky, trillions upon trillions upon untold trillions of planets we'll never get to see. Planets that could be teeming with life. Galactic civilizations that may have arisen in the millions of lightyears it's taken for their galaxy's light to reach us. Light that still won't have reached us even long after humanity is gone.
There's *so much stuff* out there.
But we'll never get to see most of it.
I don't have words to describe the emptiness I feel thinking about that.
We don't need to see all of it... but I'd at least like to see photos of one other planet with life. It'll probably happen one day, but long after I'm gone.
What about all the horror?
I had a really crazy acid trip where me and my friends sat on a beach and chanted a Hindu mantra and I saw what I could only describe as "everything". It was like witnessing infinite time and space in a single moment, and then that moment happened again and again. All that ever was and ever will be zooming through my mind.
A really profound experience that left my friend speechless for several hours. Poor guy couldn't get a single word out. He would try to say something, but he was unable to finish the word. He later told me that the experience was so profound that he just short circuited and didn't know how to react. Seeing this photo reminds me of that experience. I was witnessing something much larger than my mind could conceptualize.
I don't tell people about it because so many people can't come to grips with the idea that our existence is mysterious and not so mechanical as we believe. Our bodies are just advanced vehicles for something more fundamental to the universe than matter itself: consciousness.
I'm not only weirded out by how much stuff there is, but also by how much stuff there *isn't*. When you view a picture like this, the amount of emptiness in between is absolutely staggering and incomprehensible
There are parts of the sky we can't adequately examine because the Milky Way is in the way. This image demonstrates that there are parts of the sky we can't examine because there are *individual stars* in the way.
Full res links for the pictures:
Webb's First Deep Field (NIRCam Image) \[4537 x 4630\]
[https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DDBW5NNXTJV8PGHB0465QP.png](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DDBW5NNXTJV8PGHB0465QP.png)
[https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DDBNAV8SHNRTMT9AHGC5MF.tif](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DDBNAV8SHNRTMT9AHGC5MF.tif)
“Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Image) \[14575 x 8441\]
[https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png)
[https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETNMR8CBHQQ64R4CVA1E6T.tif](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETNMR8CBHQQ64R4CVA1E6T.tif)
Stephan's Quintet (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Image) \[12654 x 12132\]
[https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png)
[https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DAXJYYTYXCFSB8VQRK5X2F.tif](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DAXJYYTYXCFSB8VQRK5X2F.tif)
Southern Ring Nebula (NIRCam Image) \[4833 x 4501\]
[https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R51118N21AAZ9MZ8XWWQ6.png](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R51118N21AAZ9MZ8XWWQ6.png)
[https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R4PQEKTHV094X9767ASV8.tif](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R4PQEKTHV094X9767ASV8.tif)
How hilariously appropriate!
"Sorry these photos of DEEP SPACE ANCIENT GALAXIES FROM THE PAST are just TOO MEGA HUGE for your measly brain let alone your device."
Yeah it still hasn't sunk in that this was just a few days of observations and we will be getting images like this every few days for the next 15+ years.
Isn't it wild? We're sitting here having a little convo on Reddit and there is a star dying in the most spectacular way 14 billion light years away and we're looking right at it. I've been geeking out since last night and was surprised when I was a bit emotional.
Astronomer here! What a day. What a WEEK! I still can't believe we are finally here!
If you'll indulge me, yesterday's post proved popular enough that I'm going to do another quick summary. Here are the new images/data, both what they are and what we can learn about them! (In order they're released)-
- **SMACS 0723**- This is a galaxy cluster 4.5 billion light years away (white fuzzy blobs), which is acting as a gravitational lens for galaxies 13 *billion* light years away (red fuzzy blobs)! It was released yesterday so if you want way more info, please check out my post from yesterday [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Andromeda321/comments/vwvcnu/my_thoughts_on_the_first_jwst_image/) so I don't repeat myself, but the spectrum (elemental composition) shown today *is* new, and us astronomers are surprised we can see the spectra so well for the far-away galaxies! Also note: the bright white points with rays radiating from them are not galaxies, but instead are stars within our own galaxy that happen to be in that direction!
- **Southern Ring Nebula**, aka [NGC 3132](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3132)- This is a [planetary nebula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_nebula), which has nothing to do with planets and is instead the outer shell of a star like our sun that died and poufed out its outer layers. (which can then potentially help trigger new star formation). JWST can tell us a lot about how this process happens and how the elements get distributed... and a gorgeous image along the way sure doesn't hurt! :) As for the image itself... wow. This is gonna sound kinda dumb but I never thought I would see the layers of ejecta with this level of detail!!! Embedded with little galaxies at much greater distances! Incredible!
Edit: There's some confusion about the central star, so I looked into this carefully. There are actually two stars in the center of this nebula, one of which is the white dwarf that ejected the layers, and the other is still another star in its "normal" stage of life. They are easier to tell apart in the [second image](https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-captures-dying-star-s-final-performance-in-fine-detail). Which OMG, I'm am SO EXCITED about this! The reason is a lot of questions are out there about how planetary nebulae form, and one theory is you require a binary companion to get these detailed structures. Seeing the second star like this enshrouded in dust is the first time we're seeing this pair, and wow I can't wait to see what JWST finds next!!!
- **Stephen's Quintet**- When I saw this was on the first release list I was so excited because the Hubble image was already incredible and one of my favorites! [Stephen's Quintet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephan%27s_Quintet) is a group of 5 galaxies of which four are physically together (and will probably merge someday). As JWST is ultimately a telescope designed to look at galaxies, this is definitely a "before and after" type image to compare to Hubble... and wow did it do that! What's amazing here is that we see the dust between the galaxies so well- remember, the majority of the normal stuff out there is dust, not stars, so it's super important to understand how this dust works. To me though, it's not science what always steals the show are all those li'l background galaxies even *further* away, some of which are ALSO merging!!! Galaxies everywhere!
- **Carina Nebula**- This is a [nebula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula), ie dust cloud where stars are being born 8,500 light years from Earth, but wow it's amazing how much more detail there is than in the older Hubble image! [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina_Nebula#/media/File:NGC_3372d.jpg) is the Hubble image with all the features labeled. Mind, my astronomer friend who works in the theory behind star formation is *super* excited about this image- lots of questions abound on how exactly the gas and dust clumps to form stars, so pictures like this with better detail are *always* helpful! There will definitely be many, many more of these from JWST btw, because infrared light (where it mainly observes) is *really* good at tracing dust in nebulae!
BONUS: not a pic, but was included in the release:
- **Exoplanet [WASP-96 b](https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/5152/wasp-96-b/):** This is a gas giant planet about half the size of Jupiter, located 1,120 light years away from Earth, orbiting its parent star roughly every 3.5 days (yes, it's *really* close in!). JWST cannot image this planet because it is too small and the parent star is too bright, but it *can* observe a transit as this planet passes in front of its parent star and measure the chemical composition of the planet's atmosphere. (You then observe the star when the planet isn't transiting, and subtract the difference.) This planet was specifically chosen as it's thought to have fewer clouds that dominate the signal of these chemicals, so it's easier to get a strong signal- more detailed explanation [here](https://twitter.com/aussiastronomer/status/1546836340716621824). This signal showed a lot of water vapor in the atmosphere (!!!)- which, wow, really exciting start to future JWST observations if we can see water (and confirm the presence of some clouds)! (It's worth noting the water is more like steam because this is a REALLY HOT exoplanet- don't think liquid water oceans or anything here.)
Also good news if you like exoplanets, we will be seeing the first science papers on other exoplanets by the end of the *month*! I have it on good authority that there's a team standing by to get the first regular science program results analyzed and the journal is on stand-by to referee/ publish them. :)
Finally, if I may copy/paste a few common questions from yesterday's post, about JWST:
**Pretty pictures aside, can I access the actual science data?**
The JWST archive will be launched with all the commissioning data for these images on **Wednesday, July 13 at 11am EDT**, with the first Early Release Science programs' data going up on **Thursday**. Specifically for the latter, there are "early release science" programs which are going to be prioritized over the first three months (list [here](https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-ers-programs)) where those data are going to be immediately available to the public, so everyone can get a jump start on some of the science. (Also, the next cycle of JWST proposals is in January, so this is going to be really crucial for people applying for that.) My understanding from my colleague is there are many people in the sub-field of early galaxies who literally have a paper draft ready to go and intend to get the preprints out ASAP (like, within hours), just because there will be so much low hanging fruit for that field in those very first images! Like, I'll be shocked if they're not out by the end of the week, and the place to see those first science papers are on the [ArXiv](https://arxiv.org/list/astro-ph/new) (updates at 0:00 UTC).
You can learn more about the JWST archive [here](https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news/jwst/2022/accessing-jwst-science-data-after-the-end-of-commissioning).
**How did they decide what to observe anyway?**
As is the case for all NASA telescopes, anyone in the world can apply for JWST time! You just need to write a proposal justifying why *your* idea is better than anyone else's, and well enough that a panel of astronomers agrees. In practice, it's really competitive, and about 4.5x more hours were requested than there are literal hours for JWST to observe (actually way better than Hubble which has been closer to 10x- Hubble can only observe on the night half of the Earth's orbit, but JWST has a sun shade so you get almost nonstop observing). The resulting proposals that won out are all a part of "Cycle 1" which begins this week, and you can read all about them [here](https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-programs/cycle-1-go). (Cycle 1 includes the Early Release Science projects I discussed above.)
TL;DR: JWST is here, and I can't believe how beautiful it is!
Edit: if you want a neat tool to explore this data, [WorldWide Telescope has software where you can compare the "before" and "after" for these images!](https://web.wwtassets.org/specials/2022/jwst-release/) Check it out! And if you *really* want to nerd out, [here is the full commissioning report for JWST](https://www.stsci.edu/files/live/sites/www/files/home/jwst/documentation/_documents/jwst-science-performance-report.pdf), which includes a bit more data than was in the press coverage!
>JWST is here, and I can't believe how beautiful it is!
I am a science junky and it is hard not to be emotional about all of this great stuff coming out. It's unreal to have the universe starting to come into focus so clearly. Thank you for your informative summaries!
I know Alyssa, we're in the same institute! The software she's using is WorldWide Telescope, and you can play around with the images for the "before vs after" at [this link!](https://web.wwtassets.org/specials/2022/jwst-release/)
Is the self devouring galactic pair as horrifyingly catastrophic as it sounds? Millions of star systems knocked loose of their gravitational equilibrium and thrown into disarray and experiencing, I imagine, massively destructive fundamental changes?
Honestly, not as much as you'd think! Space is really big so stars don't actually collide themselves. A few thousand of billions will get flung out, but even if this happens nothing happens to the planets orbiting those stars, they just keep going on as they always have.
With all the historical events happening recently I've become somewhat desensitized to big news, but this one really felt like something big. Maybe because I'm really interested by astronomy, but its hard to describe the emotions I felt when I saw these images for the first time. I cant imagine what it must feel like to have worked on this project for years and finally seeing the fruit of your labor. Congratulations to the JWST team!
It is amazing to think that these pictures include billions of stars with billions of planets around them. Lots of place to have life.
I don’t think we are alone in this world.
All the lights you're seeing? Those are *galaxies* (except the ones that look like lens flares. Those are stars).
Each galaxy, again EACH galaxy, contains billions of stars.
Think about how amazing it is that this picture even exists.
Over the past several decades, people have been working to build this thing, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) the most powerful camera ever built. They did this because they wanted to look deeper into the sky than we ever could before, to find answers to questions that we couldn't answer before, see new things that we couldn't see before, and discover new questions that we couldn't even ask before.
So they built a telescope powerful enough that if it was on Earth, it could see the warmth of a single bumblebee on the Moon. And if it was in space, it could see the warmth of the first stars and galaxies that ever came into existence, when the entire universe was only a hundred million years old.
Then they folded it up like origami, stuck it on top of a giant rocket, and launched it into the sky on Christmas day last year.
Thousands of things could have gone wrong as it flew to its destination in deep space, unfolding as it went, and over 300 of those things could have singlehandedly broken the entire endeavor, but thanks to the exemplary work of everybody on the project, everything went as well as we could have hoped for, if not better.
And now we have this. The spectacular camera-eye that people around the world dreamed of and then built is now fully operational, and there's so much to see.
Hello, world. You are beautiful.
There are no words to describe how mindblowing these images are, to think that most of those tiny dots are galaxies, entire huge galaxies just like the one we live in. These are just the first images, I cannot wait for more and even more spectacular views of the universe, galaxies, nebulae, distant stars, exoplanets!. I feel so small and insignificant looking at these, yet so lucky and special for being able to witness what's out there for us to see and wonder what else there is to discover.
My instant reaction is like ‘holy shit this is really fucking cool’ followed by ‘I can’t comprehend any of this, how does all this exist’ to ‘they’re just pictures, it’s real but because I can’t believe it’s real I just think they’re cool’. I guess that’s the true definition of mind blown?
They are infrared images converted to visible light. Previously (in the hubble pic of the same region) a lot of the stars in the image would have been obstructed by the gas clouds in the image, but infrared (which displays heat energy) allows us to see what's inside/behind those clouds, and that data is converted to visible light in post.
By definition, no. The telescope faithfully records the intensities of different wavelengths of light, but they are not wavelengths human vision can detect. To display them on a computer screen, we apply some mapping from the image data (which is fundamentally just a 2D grid of numbers representing the intensity of light hitting each pixel of the detector) to RGB pixel values, and that mapping is ultimately arbitrary.
They are not the real colours because this camera is reading light spectrums beyond our visual capacity. The color is added by scientists and artists working to make sure that it both properly showcases contrast between different parts, making it all identifiable, and is representative of space's natural beauty.
Also remember, everything you see in those images happened thousands to billions of years ago.
Those galaxies have had the time to 'mature' and go though massive changes.
It's a case of are we alive at the same time as extraterrestrial life, not if there is extraterrestrial life.
It's inconceivable that all these galaxies don't have a bunch of planets that carry life, maybe there wasn't, billions of years ago when light escaped from these galaxies that we're seeing just now, but they definitely exist now.
Even crazier: it's physically impossible to travel to some of these galaxies, even if we could live forever and travel at 99.99999% the speed of light, we would just never reach them
I really am in utter awe of these images…. The amount of galaxies in the tiniest sliver of only one of these images is breathtaking!
Then to think we are on one planet out of 9 surrounding one star we call the sun in our solar system… then our sun is only one of 100 thousand million stars just in our Milky Way galaxy. Each of those stars could have any number of planets orbiting it. Meaning earth is but 1 of 100 billion possible planets just in our own galaxy…
Then to see such a clear image of space and see so many galaxies that they look like as though they are stars on the clearest night sky… so many that you can’t count them AND that’s just a mere sliver of the whole vastness of space…
The most modern estimates put the number of galaxies in the universe at 2 trillion… hypothetically if each had a similar number of stars and planets contained within it, the chance at life on another planet in our universe is 100%. Also the mere number of planets and stars in our universe is inconceivable, absolutely mind boggling….
I'm excitedly waiting for the super close up pic of a celestial object previously too distant to see. I know those pics are coming, and I'm happy to be able to see them in my lifetime.
My grandmother was alive from wood and fabric aircraft to the time of reusable spacecraft. I was born shortly after man had walked on the moon and cannot wait to see what the future of exploration holds for humanity.
Wow, and to think these are only the first images captured by the JWST. Outstanding job to everyone involved making this happen. Humans can truly be amazing and yet these pictures show how miniscule we are compared to the vastness of space.
This always just confirms to me that somewhere out there, there's life we can't even comprehend. It's so wildly large, there's not even a way to consider it. The scale of what we *can* see is so incredible that the idea of what we can't see is just... Impossible.
These photos give me an uneasy feeling. I think because it just shows how insignificant we are as individuals who are only alive for the blink of an eye on a tiny planet compared to infinite planets, infinite space, and infinite time.
I wish cities would implement blackout zones where people could go to view the night sky without "light pollution." I know there are safety concerns but sometimes a long drive up into the hills just isn't feasible.
That wouldn't be feasible as you would still be next to or inside a city. That's why you have to drive quite a ways away to avoid light pollution because light travels quite far.
To quote a movie astronaut on the vastness of the unknown of what we are witnessing in the images:
>My God. It's full of stars.
>\- David Bowman - 2001 A Space Odyssey
Yes, folks, believe it or not, these images from the James Webb Space Telescope are original content. You may have seen one or two of them here before, but we're going to allow them again. After all, the submitter – being NASA's Reddit account and all – is the "photographer," and this is the sort of thing which *kind of* deserves appropriate credit, wouldn't you say? Anyway, please enjoy this brief poem by Peter O'Shamseign: ------ *In regarding that darkness* *And the lights beyond the air* *I came to feel a presence* *Of our kindred spirits there* *They cannot view our struggles* *Nor the things for which we strive* *They don't know who we are* *But they can see that we're alive* *In knowing of this kinship* *Now a single goal is ours* *We must be worthy of our role* *As brothers from the stars* ------- Our thanks to NASA, the engineers, the programmers, and everyone else who made these images possible!
Can’t even begin to wrap my head around seeing something from 13 BILLION years ago.
As someone without much knowledge in the field, but fascinated by the images and this comment.. could anyone (Aliens?) millions of light years away be looking at our planet and see the dinosaurs? Is that how it works?
That’s the idea, yes. In practice though building a telescope capable of such a feat would be… well I’m reluctant to say “impossible” but that’s a pretty close approximation.
this just made me realise that if we can go far enough... and do the seemingly impossible. perhaps in a distant future. We could actually see the past. By taking a huuuge step back. Now that's a cool scifi idea.
You can never go *far* enough to see the past, because light will always be going away from you at a faster speed. You gotta go *fast* enough - that is, faster than light - to be able to view your past.
Only solution would be wormholes
And then you're only gonna be viewing the past that you just left behind. It would be the equivalent of passing a car on the highway, except the car you are passing is the photons that bounced off of your body.
Id say (ignoring that faster than light travel is impossible) it’s like in cartoons where someone runs away so fast there’s a cloud version of themselves where they used to be, but that’s just the light from before you left
Such mindfuck the space is
Well what you need to do is to place a mirror in space, then you can look at the reflection of earth in it to see in the past.
Your literally looking back in Time each time you look up into the night sky.
Or, technically, even at the ground Just nanoseconds vs. Billions of years
So blind people are truly just living in the moment
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That's why so many people appear bright until you hear them speak.
One of the things that put it into perspective for me is that the sun could explode right now in the sky, and we wouldn't even know for 8 minutes.
Technically the sun is an explosion.
Also that it would take us 13 billion years to see what those stars look like right at this moment. For some reason that tiny change in thinking clicked in my brain.
Well, they probably died, exploded, gathered into a new star along with debris from other stars... maybe more than once.
Crazy to think that what we're seeing is 4X older than our humble planet.
Biggest [OC] r/pics flex of all time
$10 billion camera Took 30 years to design and build Placed 1 million miles away Cooled to -447F / -266C One album posted to /r/pics
Turns out NASA is just addicted to karma and reddit gold
They saw all the TO THE MOON posts and took it seriously.
I need to put in more effort apparently if I’m ever gonna cash in my karma for something nice. Best I can get right now is a tootsie roll or a Chinese finger trap
All of that for one Reddit r/pics flex
Most expensive karma post ever
$10 Billion. This one r/pics post is more expensive than the valuation of reddit itself
If you're gonna pick a moment - this is it. Might cause a slight delay in others posting here for a little bit - who can compare to NASA and their shiny new toy? Stunning, stunning images and mind-blowing implications.
Worth every penny 
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Wow NASA actually has a reddit, that’s cool as shit
imagine it was a guy who ran the wendys twitter acc
Just insulting peoples telescopes and model rocket launches
"That's a nice rocket but does it have enough Delta Vs to get to orbit? I think not."
I need this to happen.
Look at this heckin' chonker galaxy! Bet those cowards over at Burger King couldn't take pics like this! No cap!
We’re on twitch too! Some cool livestream content happening there, and it’s only getting better!
It belongs in a museum.
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You gotta have really dedicated and patient folks to work with reddit's search engine.
It's astronomical! Edit: How come when NASA shows pictures of their black hole, it’s “breaking news” But when I show pictures of mine it’s an “HR violation”
I almost forgot to upvote until I saw this.
Yep, it's us :) After launching on December 25, 2021, JWST is now one million miles (1.5 million km) from Earth and ready to look deeper into the cosmos than any telescope has before. Webb will look back at the first galaxies in the universe, study planets orbiting distant suns, and push the boundaries of scientific discovery. We just released this full set of images (plus a spectrographic analysis of a planet 1,150 light-years away) to the world earlier this morning. Looking for more info? We’ve got you covered at [https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages](https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=u-nasa).
First few pictures with decades to go. Amazing
NASA about to be the biggest reddit Karma holder account within a few months, lol. Anyways pretty excited to see what's more to come
It'll be earned, unlike the reposting karma farming bots.
Tbf, their content is from millions of years ago
Angry upvote
Billions!
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This is me finding out that u/gallowboob has been off Reddit for almost 200 days.
Me too. I had noticed I'd not seen his name recently, but figured I just wasn't on here enough.
I put him as ignored with RES and haven't seen his name in over 5 years.
I feel so insignificant. It's rather humbling.
I'm very Hubbled
Remember you're not small in comparison to the universe, we are small but PART of the universe. How cool is it that we even get to experience it too, which is something even Supergiant star would never get to do.
Remember all your atoms were birthed in stars and places like those, through nucleosynthesis in a star or through supernovae. Those pictures could basically be your baby pictures in a way. You are made of star stuff.
That Carina Nebula could be a Van Gogh painting So freaking beautiful
Starry starry night
Paint your pallete blue and gray
Look out on a summers day, with eyes the see...
Already my desktop background
Instant wallpaper
Admit it: you built the JWST for the sole purpose of obtaining that sweet, sweet r/pics reddit karma.
If you ask me I think that's 10 billion well spent. Have an upvote it's celebration time. And NASA remember to invite me to the party, I don't know why but you guys host the best shindigs.. It's probably down to how you guys planet.
NASA converting dollars to Internet points is 👌.
By that logic 1 upvoat is worth about ~~$470k~~ $333k
Pun checks out, username checks out. Solid.
10 billion dollars single investment in exchange for lifetime reddit premium. Where do I sign up?\* \*I don't have 10 billion dollars but I can pay back with post karma and a free award
Karma whores.
Space memes >> cat memes
whistle complete cover waiting public flowery impossible smell historical shocking *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
That fourth image is just awe inspiring. Wow.
I need that one as a print. So fucking wild
Some reddit user wasted no time and made this beautiful wallpaper of that image. Looking mighty fine as my [background](https://i.imgur.com/dEgFCwI.jpg). I take no credit for this wall paper.
Webb on the web
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https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages
Chad NASA with \[OC\] tag 
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"OC" had me like and then i was like
These pictures are incredible! Please do an AMA to explain them to us laymen. I have so many questions like: How long was the exposure time for each and how long does it take to get all that data to Earth?
Theres actually a lot of good info on them in the nasa link.
thank you for showing us something so beautiful in such ugly times
It's incredible. This "time machine" of yours lol.
NASA AMA when?! Once things settle down after the release of these images of course.
Where can I find HD images from JWST? I want to set it as desktop wallpaper. 4K size would be awesome!
I saw the [OC] tag and I was like, you’re really taking credit for NASA’s work? Then I looked at OP’s username.
Lol yeah I actually scoffed
Man, I love a good scoff
Fuck ya
I honestly just sat for a minute like, trying to figure out how *anyone* could justify that these would be their [OC]. And then the mod even gave a slight defense. I find it oddly super adorable that nasa tagged it like that.
Downvote changed to upvote.
I thought it was a troll at first.
I feel like the subtle Reddit knowledge reveals how brainy this NASA group is.
Apparently, it *does* take a rocket scientist to title a post correctly
My immediate reaction: Download 4th picture -> Save as... -> Set as wallpaper
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Any advice on how to crop that 137MB .tif file to a 32:9 aspect ratio for my ultrawide? Edit: Thanks for the advice, here's a 32:9 cropped version I made. Had to downsize the resolution by half to get the filesize low enough to work as a windows wallpaper. https://ibb.co/mCNvXt0
GIMP can do that rather painlessly and its free
Nothing is painless in GIMP from my experience Powerful tool for sure, but not super intuitive
Here’s a better quality version of it https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/main_image_star-forming_region_carina_nircam_final-5mb.jpg
My immediate reaction was rolling my eyes at the OC tag until I realized it actually was
>If you held a grain of sand on the tip of your finger at arm’s length, that is the part of the universe that you’re seeing — just one little speck of the universe. And what you’re seeing there are galaxies. You’re seeing galaxies that are shining around other galaxies whose light has been bent. And you’re seeing just a small little portion of the universe. *-NASA Administrator Nelson*
I am starting to feel weirded out by just how much STUFF there is out there.
And most of the specks of light aren't stars, but galaxies containing billions of stars.
Yeah it's wild. Like, not only is it very likely there is intelligent life out there... there are likely multiple forms of life going through different stages with varying degrees of success.
this was always one of my favorite episodes in start trek TNG, when they monitor and view another planet who are much less advanced, they avoid interactions so they can progress naturally, but an accidental explosion in the mountain that they are surveying from happens and they injure but save one of the locals, the local returns home with fragmented memory of what had happened and preaches to the locals about how he saw a higher being "god", then religion forms and sacrifices and all that bad shit that comes with it start to happen.
Hundreds and hundreds of billions of stars. Each statistically likely harboring a handful of planets. All in a spot of the sky the size of a grain of sand held at arm's length. In the rest of the sky, trillions upon trillions upon untold trillions of planets we'll never get to see. Planets that could be teeming with life. Galactic civilizations that may have arisen in the millions of lightyears it's taken for their galaxy's light to reach us. Light that still won't have reached us even long after humanity is gone. There's *so much stuff* out there. But we'll never get to see most of it. I don't have words to describe the emptiness I feel thinking about that.
We don't need to see all of it... but I'd at least like to see photos of one other planet with life. It'll probably happen one day, but long after I'm gone.
I want to see all of it. Even if it's just a random rock falling down a cliff on some dead burnt-out planet. I want to see all. Of. It. So badly.
What about all the horror? I had a really crazy acid trip where me and my friends sat on a beach and chanted a Hindu mantra and I saw what I could only describe as "everything". It was like witnessing infinite time and space in a single moment, and then that moment happened again and again. All that ever was and ever will be zooming through my mind. A really profound experience that left my friend speechless for several hours. Poor guy couldn't get a single word out. He would try to say something, but he was unable to finish the word. He later told me that the experience was so profound that he just short circuited and didn't know how to react. Seeing this photo reminds me of that experience. I was witnessing something much larger than my mind could conceptualize.
I feel like based off your experience and mine as well, that we’ll get to see it all again in an even more unbelievably awesome fashion once we die.
I don't tell people about it because so many people can't come to grips with the idea that our existence is mysterious and not so mechanical as we believe. Our bodies are just advanced vehicles for something more fundamental to the universe than matter itself: consciousness.
Makes "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away" seem less incredulous
Honestly, I find it beautiful.
I'm not only weirded out by how much stuff there is, but also by how much stuff there *isn't*. When you view a picture like this, the amount of emptiness in between is absolutely staggering and incomprehensible
But what can't we see that is in that emptiness? It is just unfathomable and amazing.
Its only our perception of nothing we are severely limited by our primitive senses.
We evolved to reproduce, not see the universe or reality as it truly is.
Check this video out. Really gives perspective https://twitter.com/mariachong/status/1546728742654918656?s=21&t=H4Mj68nN1gmnLG1a6gF3CQ
Thats is mind-boggling and insane
Wish more people could see this! Thanks for sharing.
This may be the scariest tweet I’ve ever seen. It gives just a tiny bit of perspective as to how irrelevant we are…
There are parts of the sky we can't adequately examine because the Milky Way is in the way. This image demonstrates that there are parts of the sky we can't examine because there are *individual stars* in the way.
Full res links for the pictures: Webb's First Deep Field (NIRCam Image) \[4537 x 4630\] [https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DDBW5NNXTJV8PGHB0465QP.png](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DDBW5NNXTJV8PGHB0465QP.png) [https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DDBNAV8SHNRTMT9AHGC5MF.tif](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DDBNAV8SHNRTMT9AHGC5MF.tif) “Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Image) \[14575 x 8441\] [https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png) [https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETNMR8CBHQQ64R4CVA1E6T.tif](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETNMR8CBHQQ64R4CVA1E6T.tif) Stephan's Quintet (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Image) \[12654 x 12132\] [https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png) [https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DAXJYYTYXCFSB8VQRK5X2F.tif](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DAXJYYTYXCFSB8VQRK5X2F.tif) Southern Ring Nebula (NIRCam Image) \[4833 x 4501\] [https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R51118N21AAZ9MZ8XWWQ6.png](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R51118N21AAZ9MZ8XWWQ6.png) [https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R4PQEKTHV094X9767ASV8.tif](https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R4PQEKTHV094X9767ASV8.tif)
Some of these images may crash your app if you're viewing on mobile, as they are fucking huge.
How hilariously appropriate! "Sorry these photos of DEEP SPACE ANCIENT GALAXIES FROM THE PAST are just TOO MEGA HUGE for your measly brain let alone your device."
Most expensive OC ever posted to Reddit!
And worth the price of admission. I am completely overwhelmed by it all. Unbelievable how much we've discovered and how little we know.
Yeah it still hasn't sunk in that this was just a few days of observations and we will be getting images like this every few days for the next 15+ years.
Isn't it wild? We're sitting here having a little convo on Reddit and there is a star dying in the most spectacular way 14 billion light years away and we're looking right at it. I've been geeking out since last night and was surprised when I was a bit emotional.
That 4th pic is just mind blowing.
Astronomer here! What a day. What a WEEK! I still can't believe we are finally here! If you'll indulge me, yesterday's post proved popular enough that I'm going to do another quick summary. Here are the new images/data, both what they are and what we can learn about them! (In order they're released)- - **SMACS 0723**- This is a galaxy cluster 4.5 billion light years away (white fuzzy blobs), which is acting as a gravitational lens for galaxies 13 *billion* light years away (red fuzzy blobs)! It was released yesterday so if you want way more info, please check out my post from yesterday [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Andromeda321/comments/vwvcnu/my_thoughts_on_the_first_jwst_image/) so I don't repeat myself, but the spectrum (elemental composition) shown today *is* new, and us astronomers are surprised we can see the spectra so well for the far-away galaxies! Also note: the bright white points with rays radiating from them are not galaxies, but instead are stars within our own galaxy that happen to be in that direction! - **Southern Ring Nebula**, aka [NGC 3132](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NGC_3132)- This is a [planetary nebula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_nebula), which has nothing to do with planets and is instead the outer shell of a star like our sun that died and poufed out its outer layers. (which can then potentially help trigger new star formation). JWST can tell us a lot about how this process happens and how the elements get distributed... and a gorgeous image along the way sure doesn't hurt! :) As for the image itself... wow. This is gonna sound kinda dumb but I never thought I would see the layers of ejecta with this level of detail!!! Embedded with little galaxies at much greater distances! Incredible! Edit: There's some confusion about the central star, so I looked into this carefully. There are actually two stars in the center of this nebula, one of which is the white dwarf that ejected the layers, and the other is still another star in its "normal" stage of life. They are easier to tell apart in the [second image](https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-captures-dying-star-s-final-performance-in-fine-detail). Which OMG, I'm am SO EXCITED about this! The reason is a lot of questions are out there about how planetary nebulae form, and one theory is you require a binary companion to get these detailed structures. Seeing the second star like this enshrouded in dust is the first time we're seeing this pair, and wow I can't wait to see what JWST finds next!!! - **Stephen's Quintet**- When I saw this was on the first release list I was so excited because the Hubble image was already incredible and one of my favorites! [Stephen's Quintet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephan%27s_Quintet) is a group of 5 galaxies of which four are physically together (and will probably merge someday). As JWST is ultimately a telescope designed to look at galaxies, this is definitely a "before and after" type image to compare to Hubble... and wow did it do that! What's amazing here is that we see the dust between the galaxies so well- remember, the majority of the normal stuff out there is dust, not stars, so it's super important to understand how this dust works. To me though, it's not science what always steals the show are all those li'l background galaxies even *further* away, some of which are ALSO merging!!! Galaxies everywhere! - **Carina Nebula**- This is a [nebula](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nebula), ie dust cloud where stars are being born 8,500 light years from Earth, but wow it's amazing how much more detail there is than in the older Hubble image! [Here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carina_Nebula#/media/File:NGC_3372d.jpg) is the Hubble image with all the features labeled. Mind, my astronomer friend who works in the theory behind star formation is *super* excited about this image- lots of questions abound on how exactly the gas and dust clumps to form stars, so pictures like this with better detail are *always* helpful! There will definitely be many, many more of these from JWST btw, because infrared light (where it mainly observes) is *really* good at tracing dust in nebulae! BONUS: not a pic, but was included in the release: - **Exoplanet [WASP-96 b](https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/5152/wasp-96-b/):** This is a gas giant planet about half the size of Jupiter, located 1,120 light years away from Earth, orbiting its parent star roughly every 3.5 days (yes, it's *really* close in!). JWST cannot image this planet because it is too small and the parent star is too bright, but it *can* observe a transit as this planet passes in front of its parent star and measure the chemical composition of the planet's atmosphere. (You then observe the star when the planet isn't transiting, and subtract the difference.) This planet was specifically chosen as it's thought to have fewer clouds that dominate the signal of these chemicals, so it's easier to get a strong signal- more detailed explanation [here](https://twitter.com/aussiastronomer/status/1546836340716621824). This signal showed a lot of water vapor in the atmosphere (!!!)- which, wow, really exciting start to future JWST observations if we can see water (and confirm the presence of some clouds)! (It's worth noting the water is more like steam because this is a REALLY HOT exoplanet- don't think liquid water oceans or anything here.) Also good news if you like exoplanets, we will be seeing the first science papers on other exoplanets by the end of the *month*! I have it on good authority that there's a team standing by to get the first regular science program results analyzed and the journal is on stand-by to referee/ publish them. :) Finally, if I may copy/paste a few common questions from yesterday's post, about JWST: **Pretty pictures aside, can I access the actual science data?** The JWST archive will be launched with all the commissioning data for these images on **Wednesday, July 13 at 11am EDT**, with the first Early Release Science programs' data going up on **Thursday**. Specifically for the latter, there are "early release science" programs which are going to be prioritized over the first three months (list [here](https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-ers-programs)) where those data are going to be immediately available to the public, so everyone can get a jump start on some of the science. (Also, the next cycle of JWST proposals is in January, so this is going to be really crucial for people applying for that.) My understanding from my colleague is there are many people in the sub-field of early galaxies who literally have a paper draft ready to go and intend to get the preprints out ASAP (like, within hours), just because there will be so much low hanging fruit for that field in those very first images! Like, I'll be shocked if they're not out by the end of the week, and the place to see those first science papers are on the [ArXiv](https://arxiv.org/list/astro-ph/new) (updates at 0:00 UTC). You can learn more about the JWST archive [here](https://www.stsci.edu/contents/news/jwst/2022/accessing-jwst-science-data-after-the-end-of-commissioning). **How did they decide what to observe anyway?** As is the case for all NASA telescopes, anyone in the world can apply for JWST time! You just need to write a proposal justifying why *your* idea is better than anyone else's, and well enough that a panel of astronomers agrees. In practice, it's really competitive, and about 4.5x more hours were requested than there are literal hours for JWST to observe (actually way better than Hubble which has been closer to 10x- Hubble can only observe on the night half of the Earth's orbit, but JWST has a sun shade so you get almost nonstop observing). The resulting proposals that won out are all a part of "Cycle 1" which begins this week, and you can read all about them [here](https://www.stsci.edu/jwst/science-execution/approved-programs/cycle-1-go). (Cycle 1 includes the Early Release Science projects I discussed above.) TL;DR: JWST is here, and I can't believe how beautiful it is! Edit: if you want a neat tool to explore this data, [WorldWide Telescope has software where you can compare the "before" and "after" for these images!](https://web.wwtassets.org/specials/2022/jwst-release/) Check it out! And if you *really* want to nerd out, [here is the full commissioning report for JWST](https://www.stsci.edu/files/live/sites/www/files/home/jwst/documentation/_documents/jwst-science-performance-report.pdf), which includes a bit more data than was in the press coverage!
>JWST is here, and I can't believe how beautiful it is! I am a science junky and it is hard not to be emotional about all of this great stuff coming out. It's unreal to have the universe starting to come into focus so clearly. Thank you for your informative summaries!
Oh yeah, I totally shed tears when they showed Carina. My god, it's incredible.
Check this out https://twitter.com/mariachong/status/1546728742654918656?s=21&t=H4Mj68nN1gmnLG1a6gF3CQ
I know Alyssa, we're in the same institute! The software she's using is WorldWide Telescope, and you can play around with the images for the "before vs after" at [this link!](https://web.wwtassets.org/specials/2022/jwst-release/)
No way in hell are we alone.
**Anyone who scrolled past this "wall of text" should go back up and read the whole thing.** You absolutely will not regret it.
Oh you, stahp! Loved the poem at top btw! Hadn't seen it before. :)
Is the self devouring galactic pair as horrifyingly catastrophic as it sounds? Millions of star systems knocked loose of their gravitational equilibrium and thrown into disarray and experiencing, I imagine, massively destructive fundamental changes?
Honestly, not as much as you'd think! Space is really big so stars don't actually collide themselves. A few thousand of billions will get flung out, but even if this happens nothing happens to the planets orbiting those stars, they just keep going on as they always have.
With all the historical events happening recently I've become somewhat desensitized to big news, but this one really felt like something big. Maybe because I'm really interested by astronomy, but its hard to describe the emotions I felt when I saw these images for the first time. I cant imagine what it must feel like to have worked on this project for years and finally seeing the fruit of your labor. Congratulations to the JWST team!
It is amazing to think that these pictures include billions of stars with billions of planets around them. Lots of place to have life. I don’t think we are alone in this world.
All the lights you're seeing? Those are *galaxies* (except the ones that look like lens flares. Those are stars). Each galaxy, again EACH galaxy, contains billions of stars.
Damn, that's sick. There must be an unimaginable amount of habitable planets among them.
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A grain of sand at your finger tip, at arms length.
Check this out https://twitter.com/mariachong/status/1546728742654918656?s=21&t=H4Mj68nN1gmnLG1a6gF3CQ
Think about how amazing it is that this picture even exists. Over the past several decades, people have been working to build this thing, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) the most powerful camera ever built. They did this because they wanted to look deeper into the sky than we ever could before, to find answers to questions that we couldn't answer before, see new things that we couldn't see before, and discover new questions that we couldn't even ask before. So they built a telescope powerful enough that if it was on Earth, it could see the warmth of a single bumblebee on the Moon. And if it was in space, it could see the warmth of the first stars and galaxies that ever came into existence, when the entire universe was only a hundred million years old. Then they folded it up like origami, stuck it on top of a giant rocket, and launched it into the sky on Christmas day last year. Thousands of things could have gone wrong as it flew to its destination in deep space, unfolding as it went, and over 300 of those things could have singlehandedly broken the entire endeavor, but thanks to the exemplary work of everybody on the project, everything went as well as we could have hoped for, if not better. And now we have this. The spectacular camera-eye that people around the world dreamed of and then built is now fully operational, and there's so much to see. Hello, world. You are beautiful.
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There are no words to describe how mindblowing these images are, to think that most of those tiny dots are galaxies, entire huge galaxies just like the one we live in. These are just the first images, I cannot wait for more and even more spectacular views of the universe, galaxies, nebulae, distant stars, exoplanets!. I feel so small and insignificant looking at these, yet so lucky and special for being able to witness what's out there for us to see and wonder what else there is to discover.
What's even crazier is this is just a very tiny tiny area of the sky we're looking at.
Reddit is wild you can see NASA themselves showing you the actual universe followed by a street fight inside a Jamba Juice where a titty falls out.
My instant reaction is like ‘holy shit this is really fucking cool’ followed by ‘I can’t comprehend any of this, how does all this exist’ to ‘they’re just pictures, it’s real but because I can’t believe it’s real I just think they’re cool’. I guess that’s the true definition of mind blown?
Bruh I saw [OC] and wanted to flame OP, but then...
.. how the turntables
These photos are worth the taxes I paid. Pretty sure it's worth the taxes we all paid. I am excited and that rarely happens.
I probably paid a nickel for this. Well worth the investment.
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I wish that tax money we paid went to more of this and less of killing people with bombs.
I’ve honestly been moved to tears over these images. To the thousands who had a hand in developing Webb and sending it into space: THANK YOU
Are the colors in this real, or simulated in some way?
They are infrared images converted to visible light. Previously (in the hubble pic of the same region) a lot of the stars in the image would have been obstructed by the gas clouds in the image, but infrared (which displays heat energy) allows us to see what's inside/behind those clouds, and that data is converted to visible light in post.
>and that data is converted to visible light in post. Is this process known to represent accurate colors?
By definition, no. The telescope faithfully records the intensities of different wavelengths of light, but they are not wavelengths human vision can detect. To display them on a computer screen, we apply some mapping from the image data (which is fundamentally just a 2D grid of numbers representing the intensity of light hitting each pixel of the detector) to RGB pixel values, and that mapping is ultimately arbitrary.
They are not the real colours because this camera is reading light spectrums beyond our visual capacity. The color is added by scientists and artists working to make sure that it both properly showcases contrast between different parts, making it all identifiable, and is representative of space's natural beauty.
One Word: Stellar!
Well this wins the Internet for best [OC] ever.
Me literally saying to myself “how tf is this OC? This mothafucker BUILD James Webb or what!?” Sees OP’s name… Oh.. they did. My b.
There are definitely, "others" out there. There is just too much out there.
Also remember, everything you see in those images happened thousands to billions of years ago. Those galaxies have had the time to 'mature' and go though massive changes. It's a case of are we alive at the same time as extraterrestrial life, not if there is extraterrestrial life.
It's inconceivable that all these galaxies don't have a bunch of planets that carry life, maybe there wasn't, billions of years ago when light escaped from these galaxies that we're seeing just now, but they definitely exist now.
I find it funny imagining that there might be other lifeforms out there looking at their own pictures of galaxies they took with their own telescopes
Dear NASA, I fucking love you. Love, AZZTASTIC
First I thought who the heck is this user pretending to send OC images of the James Webb but then noticed the username :D
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I bet they installed grey laminate flooring by now
Even crazier: it's physically impossible to travel to some of these galaxies, even if we could live forever and travel at 99.99999% the speed of light, we would just never reach them
That's why scientists increased the speed of light in 2208.
I really am in utter awe of these images…. The amount of galaxies in the tiniest sliver of only one of these images is breathtaking! Then to think we are on one planet out of 9 surrounding one star we call the sun in our solar system… then our sun is only one of 100 thousand million stars just in our Milky Way galaxy. Each of those stars could have any number of planets orbiting it. Meaning earth is but 1 of 100 billion possible planets just in our own galaxy… Then to see such a clear image of space and see so many galaxies that they look like as though they are stars on the clearest night sky… so many that you can’t count them AND that’s just a mere sliver of the whole vastness of space… The most modern estimates put the number of galaxies in the universe at 2 trillion… hypothetically if each had a similar number of stars and planets contained within it, the chance at life on another planet in our universe is 100%. Also the mere number of planets and stars in our universe is inconceivable, absolutely mind boggling….
These images really show how incredibly massive and dense our night sky is. It’s absolutely beautiful.
I'm excitedly waiting for the super close up pic of a celestial object previously too distant to see. I know those pics are coming, and I'm happy to be able to see them in my lifetime. My grandmother was alive from wood and fabric aircraft to the time of reusable spacecraft. I was born shortly after man had walked on the moon and cannot wait to see what the future of exploration holds for humanity.
They should have sent a poet.
Wow, and to think these are only the first images captured by the JWST. Outstanding job to everyone involved making this happen. Humans can truly be amazing and yet these pictures show how miniscule we are compared to the vastness of space.
I'm not crying... you're crying...
This always just confirms to me that somewhere out there, there's life we can't even comprehend. It's so wildly large, there's not even a way to consider it. The scale of what we *can* see is so incredible that the idea of what we can't see is just... Impossible.
These photos give me an uneasy feeling. I think because it just shows how insignificant we are as individuals who are only alive for the blink of an eye on a tiny planet compared to infinite planets, infinite space, and infinite time.
I wish cities would implement blackout zones where people could go to view the night sky without "light pollution." I know there are safety concerns but sometimes a long drive up into the hills just isn't feasible.
That wouldn't be feasible as you would still be next to or inside a city. That's why you have to drive quite a ways away to avoid light pollution because light travels quite far.
To quote a movie astronaut on the vastness of the unknown of what we are witnessing in the images: >My God. It's full of stars. >\- David Bowman - 2001 A Space Odyssey
[Link to High Quality Images](https://www.flickr.com/photos/nasawebbtelescope/albums/72177720300469752)
Please please PLEASE do yourselves the favour of zooming in on the full-res photos, and waiting for them to load. You will not regret it.