NASA’s James Webb space telescope has released the first full-colour infrared image of the distant universe, revealing the deepest and sharpest images to date of galaxies billions of light years away.

The James Webb telescope, the most powerful ever launched, was launched on 25 December 2021 from French Guyana and is now orbiting the sun one million miles away from Earth.

Thousands of galaxies, including the faintest objects ever observed in infrared, have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time.

The deep field image, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) is a composite made from images at different wavelengths totalling 12.5 hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the ability of the Hubble Space telescope and resulting in much higher resolution images.

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. Researchers will soon be able to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions, as Webb seeks the earliest galaxies in the universe.

US President Joe Biden publicly showed the first image at a White House briefing.

Ahead of the image being unveiled, Biden said: "It's a new window into the history of our universe.

“Today we're going to get a glimpse of the first light to shine through that window: light from other worlds, orbiting stars far beyond our own. It's astounding to me."

NASA will publish additional images in the coming days, one of which it says will reveal details about the atmosphere of an exoplanet outside of our solar system.

Share Story: