The first Webb images
The deepest infrared view of the universe ever taken, from a telescope that could not be repaired.
- When
- Known to
- ± 12 hours
- Era
- Contemporary, Holocene
Released on 12 July 2022, the first science images from the James Webb Space Telescope showed galaxies magnified by a cluster's gravity as they were 13 billion years ago, the atmosphere of an exoplanet, and the Carina Nebula in detail no instrument had reached. Webb had launched the previous December and unfolded through 344 single-point failures, a million miles from any possible repair. It has since pushed the record for the earliest known galaxy back to within 300 million years of the Big Bang.