Currents News Staff
This changes everything – sort of.
“We expect it to change our understanding of the universe,” said Neil deGrasse Tyson, an Astrophysicist.
He’s talking about the James Webb Space Telescope and what it can reveal. NASA says the telescope captures the deepest images of the universe humans have ever seen.
“You’re seeing galaxies that are shining around other galaxies,” said Bill Nelson, NASA Administrator. “And you’re seeing just a small little portion of the universe.”
This galaxy cluster is shown as it appeared about 4.6 billion years ago!
“Frankly, got emotional,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, a NASA Associate Administrator.
The telescope doesn’t just peek into “a galaxy far, far away” but it also looks back in time.
“This telescope is exquisitely tuned to see galaxies forming at the origin of the universe,” said Tyson.
That’s because it shows stars so distant, they might not even exist by the time their light reaches the telescope. In fact, by then, much of that light has stretched into infrared waves – invisible to us, but not to Webb.
“Over the thirteen-and-a-half billion years that the light has been traveling,” said Tyson. “The universe has been expanding.”
That’s why the telescope is launching a whole new way to gaze at the stars.