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NASA Webb Telescope Profile picture
@NASAWebb
Jul 11, 2022 • 7 tweets • 8 min read • Read on X
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👀 Sneak a peek at the deepest & sharpest infrared image of the early universe ever taken — all in a day’s work for the Webb telescope. (Literally, capturing it took less than a day!) This is Webb’s first image released as we begin to #UnfoldTheUniverse: nasa.gov/webbfirstimage… The background of space is black. Thousands of galaxies appe
This isn’t the farthest back we’ve observed. Non-infrared missions like COBE & WMAP saw the universe closer to the Big Bang (~380,000 years after), when there was only microwave background radiation, but no stars or galaxies. Webb sees a few 100 million years after the Big Bang. This detailed, oval map of the infant universe was created f
If you held a grain of sand up to the sky at arm’s length, that tiny speck is the size of Webb’s view in this image. Imagine — galaxies galore within a grain, including light from galaxies that traveled billions of years to us!
The James Webb Space Telescope is a collaboration between @NASA, @ESA & @CSA_ASC. The @SpaceTelescope Science Institute is the science & mission operations center for Webb.

Tune in tomorrow at 10:30 am ET (14:30 UTC) as we continue to #UnfoldTheUniverse! go.nasa.gov/3o0SbeJ
@NASA @esa @csa_asc @SpaceTelescope Yesterday, we shared the first image from Webb: galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. See the same target, viewed by @NASAHubble in 2017. Webb was able to capture this image in less than one day, while similar deep field images from Hubble can take multiple weeks. This image shows three stacked, filtered views of galaxy clu
@NASA @esa @csa_asc @SpaceTelescope @NASAHubble Compare Webb’s Mid-Infrared (L) & Near-Infrared (R) views. Lens flares? Nope, the spikes you see are when light from bright objects like stars is bent by the edges of the telescope. They’re less prominent in mid-infrared.

More on diffraction spikes: webbtelescope.org/contents/media… Side-by-side deep field images from the Webb telescope’s M
@NASA @esa @csa_asc @SpaceTelescope @NASAHubble Why do some of the galaxies in this image appear bent? The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a “gravitational lens,” bending light rays from more distant galaxies behind it, magnifying them. The light from the farthest galaxy here traveled 13.1 billion years to us. An infographic labeled “Galaxy Cluster SMACS 0723. Webb Sp

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More from @NASAWebb

NASA Webb Telescope Profile picture
Jul 2
Star-spangled 🎆

Webb’s new red, white and blue image features a star-to-be: a protostar. Only about 100,000 years old, this relatively young object is hidden in the “neck” of the hourglass-shaped cloud of gas and dust: science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/…
A growing protostar embedded within a molecular cloud. The center of the image shows a bright, red region, where the protostar resides, with a thin, gray lane cutting through it horizontally, which is the protostar’s accretion disk. Above and below this region are white and blue triangular-shaped cavities in the molecular cloud, which give the overall object an hourglass shape. The areas of the cavities closest to the central protostar have more pronounced plumes of white gas and dust that fade to a blue color further from the center. There are red, yellow, orange, blue, and green stars and...
Webb captured this scene with its Mid-Infrared Instrument. Here, blue represents carbon-rich molecules, and red highlights the protostar and the planet-forming disk around it. The white areas represent a mixture of hydrocarbons, ionized neon, and thick dust.
This view of the protostar marks Webb’s second look at the region. Back in 2022, Webb used its Near-Infrared Camera to see cavities being carved in the cloud as the protostar ejected material:
Read 4 tweets
NASA Webb Telescope Profile picture
May 23
Webb has pinpointed three galaxies actively forming when our 13.8 billion-years-old universe was in its infancy. The galaxies are surrounded by gas suspected to be almost purely hydrogen & helium, the earliest elements to exist. More on this breakthrough: go.nasa.gov/4aCRiPs
This illustration is awash in bright blues, with only areas of the black background of space peeking out near the edges. Just above center is a large white spiral galaxy that is forming in a large cloud of blue gas. Its arms twirl clockwise. Immediately around the galaxy’s edges are larger light blue dots. The gas appears thicker and brighter blue below the galaxy and toward the bottom left in what looks like a loose, extended column. Other wispy blue gas extends to every edge of the illustration. There are two additional spiral galaxies, though they are about half the size of the one at th...
By matching Webb’s data to models of star formation, researchers found that these galaxies are a unique window into future star formation. They primarily have populations of young stars, and the gas around them suggests they haven’t formed most of their stars yet.
These galaxies belong to the Era of Reionization, only several hundred million years after the big bang. Gas between stars and galaxies was largely opaque. Stars contributed to heating & ionizing gas, eventually turning the gas transparent one billion years after the big bang.
On a purple background is a cone shape with slices through it. At left is the narrowest part, showing blueish swirls representing the period just after the big bang. A label reads: “Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.” The cone’s second section is labeled “Cosmic microwave background, about 13.7 billion years ago, (370,000 years after the big bang).” It appears as a flat circle with a smattering of green, blue, and dark blue dots. The next slice is dark with pale wisps, labeled “Dark Ages (ended 13.6 billion years ago).” The fourth section is sprinkled with bright fuzzy dots, labeled “Era of R...
Four squares against a blue background. On the top left the square has small bubble shapes sprinkled throughout. It is labeled “Stars begin forming, heating gas.” At top right, the bubbles are larger with small seed-like galaxies at their centers. The label says “Stars assemble into galaxies.” At bottom left, the bubbles are larger still and stars and galaxies are contained in the bubbles. The label says “Galaxies become more massive.” And at bottom right, the bubbles are gone and space is full of stars and galaxies. The label says “Clear universe, end of reionization.”
Read 4 tweets
NASA Webb Telescope Profile picture
May 20
Break out the chocolate and graham crackers, we’re headed to a “marshmallow” planet!

With its puffy atmosphere, WASP-107 b is one of the least dense planets known. New Webb data may have solved the mystery of its floofiness. For s‘more on this story: go.nasa.gov/3WNFMh9
Illustration of an exoplanet with a hazy blue atmosphere and loose bands of clouds on the black background of space. The right three-quarters of the planet is lit by a star not shown in the illustration. The left quarter is in shadow. The terminator, the boundary between the day and night sides is gradual, not sharp. The planet is light blue with loose bands of white clouds. The edge of the planet has a subtle blue glow. Small white, bolded text in the bottom right corner reads “artist concept.”
WASP-107 b was thought to have a small, rocky core surrounded by a huge mass of hydrogen & helium. But how could its small core sweep up so much gas and not turn it to a Jupiter-mass planet? Or if its core was larger, why didn't its atmosphere contract to make the planet smaller?
Here’s where Webb came in. Its sensitivity teased out WASP-107 b’s atmospheric composition, revealing a surprising lack of methane — one-thousandth the amount expected. Based on this finding, researchers realized WASP-107 b had a significantly hotter interior than believed.
Read 5 tweets
NASA Webb Telescope Profile picture
May 8
The floor is lava! 🔥

Webb may have detected atmospheric gasses around molten 55 Cancri e, 41 light years from Earth. It’s the best evidence to date for a rocky planet with an atmosphere outside our solar system! go.nasa.gov/3UAG4F8
Labeled artist illustration: Illustration of a rocky exoplanet and its star. The star is in the background at the lower left and appears somewhat, but not significantly, smaller in the sky than the planet. It has a bright orange-red glow, and appears to have an active surface. The planet is in the foreground to the upper right of the star. The left quarter of the planet (the side facing the star) is lit, while the rest is in shadow. The planet has hints of a rocky, partly molten surface beneath the haze of a thin atmosphere. The boundary between the day and night sides of the planet is fuzz...
55 Cancri e is a much more hostile environment than Earth: it’s hot (thought to be molten), bathed in radiation from being close to its Sun-like star, and tidally-locked with one side always day, the other side always night.
Webb’s observations suggest it’s possible for such an extreme environment to sustain a gaseous atmosphere — and also bodes well for Webb’s ability to characterize cooler, potentially habitable rocky planets.
Read 4 tweets
NASA Webb Telescope Profile picture
Mar 4
Webb may have found evidence for the long-theorized first generation of stars — as well as the most distant active supermassive black hole to date. GN-z11, a galaxy that existed 430 million years after the big bang, is giving up its secrets: go.nasa.gov/49AtIU0
A rectangular image with thousands of galaxies of various shapes and colors on the black background of space. Some are noticeably spirals, either face-on or edge-on, while others are blobby ellipticals. Many are too small to discern any structure. One prominent foreground star at top center features Webb’s signature 8-point diffraction spikes. At lower right, a small region is highlighted with a white box. Vertical lines extend upward like a cone to the bottom corners of a larger box at upper right, showing a zoomed in version of the highlighted area. The pullout features a galaxy labeled G...
GN-z11, an extremely bright galaxy, was discovered by @NASAHubble and is one of the earliest distant galaxies ever observed. Webb found the first clear evidence explaining why it is so luminous: a 2-million-solar-mass central supermassive black hole rapidly gobbling up matter.
@NASAHubble Observers using Webb also discovered a pocket of pristine gas in the galaxy’s halo. Theory and models both suggest that clumps of helium like these may collapse to form Population III stars, the first generation of stars in the early universe. A graphic labeled “Galaxy GN-z11, Pristine Gas Clump Near GN-z11.” The graphic is divided into two sections. The top half of the graphic features a rectangular image of a field of galaxies. At lower right, a small region is highlighted with a white box. A white arrow extends leftward to a larger box showing an enlarged view of the highlighted area. The box is labeled “GN-z11” and features a fuzzy yellow dot at lower right. A second arrow extends left to a white box labeled “Helium Two Detected.” It shows a pixelated image with a dark purple background. Two yellow-green blobs with red contou...
Read 4 tweets
NASA Webb Telescope Profile picture
Oct 25, 2023
Three explosions, two stars, and a rare discovery.

Webb recently detected tellurium, an element rarer than platinum on Earth, in the explosive aftermath of two neutron stars merging. The detection may help reshape our understanding of the cosmos:
Thread👇 nasa.gov/missions/webb/…
Bright galaxies and other light sources in various sizes and shapes are scattered across a black swath of space: small points, hazy elliptical-like smudges with halos, and spiral-shaped blobs. The objects vary in color: white, blue-white, yellow-white, and orange-red. Toward the center right is a blue-white spiral galaxy seen face-on that is larger than the other light sources in the image. Toward the upper left is a small red point.
In a distant galaxy, there was once a pair of stars bound by gravity. Then one star exploded. What remained was its collapsed core, a dense remnant called a neutron star. The explosion launched the neutron star outward and pulled along its companion, still tied to it by gravity.
The second star would eventually follow suit. It, too, exploded and transformed into a neutron star. This second explosion would eject the pair even farther — 120,000 light-years away from where they started.
Read 8 tweets

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