11 July 2022
Webb’s first deep field
New James Webb image releases
© NASA, ESA, CSA
NASA released the very first science-quality image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) on 11 July. The image, dubbed Webb’s First Deep Field, is the deepest infrared view of the universe to date, making use of both Webb’s powerful optics and the technique of gravitational lensing to see the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it looked 4.6 billion years ago. “It’s really gorgeous and it’s teeming with galaxies,” Jane Rigby, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, said of the deep-field image during the live event unveiling all the new images. “We can’t take a blank sky. Everywhere we look, there’s galaxies.”