What are your thoughts of the first picture released from the James Webb Space Telescope?

As an astrophotographer I’m super interested in the image acquisition and processing. But it’s a sensational image.

I’m wondering if this image is able to support/refute any important hypotheses being debated about how our universe works?

I get the chills just thinking about all of the things that had to go right to get this image. It’s like the world’s most intricate clock, designed and built by thousands of people from all across the planet, shot into space and have everything align “just so” to achieve a perfect fit in order to see what we’re seeing.

In this time where every day I read the news and hear about even more horrible shit happening, from suffering in Ukraine, violence at home, descent into theocracy and kleptocracy, climate change, etc., seeing something this remarkable is like a candle of hope in the swirling blackness. If we were to nuke ourselves into oblivion and aliens found the JWST a million years from now, they would recognize it as the pinnacle of human accomplishment.

For the past 40 years I’ve felt the vastness of space is inconceivable to me. All new information that comes out about space seems to only reaffirm my bewilderment and this is no exception.

My first thought is wondering what does this particular space exploration add to our knowledge of space and how will it benefit us. I don’t say that with a negative tone, it’s purely curiosity.

I am stunned by it.
It’s one of those things that you know, but you’re amazed by the proof.

Delight. Wonder. Awe.

spectacular

very small

wee and small

Vast, humbling. Can’t wait to see more

Love it!

It’s a look back into time. The images no longer exist as shown. The light from the image of those distant galaxies took 13 billion light years to get here. Our tiny brains can’t comprehend such vastness of time and space.

The image shows a region of the night sky no larger than a grain of sand held in your outstretched hand and yet there are countless trillions of stars there and goodness knows what else. Definitely mind blowing.

The images had so much detail… I went crazy half way thinking the possibilities this telescope will unfold. It’s definitely gonna change the way we see the universe and rewrite textbooks, that’s for sure.

Awesome, space is so vast !

Countless skies

I have another thought. I’m so happy to live at a time when science and technology have advanced enough to give us these splendors. Seeing the pictures from this morning’s release really touches my heart. They are so beautiful. I have a friend who’s a world-class astronomer (she runs an observatory), and she’s giddy.

^^Yes! Being alive during this time is a gift to be able to witness such observations and discoveries. At least we have some positives to focus on during this difficult time in our country.

In my mind space exploration is hope for a united future. We can only hope.

It’s like being nearsighted for years without correction, then suddenly getting properly correcting glasses. We are seeing details not visible before. Stunning!

Just….wow.

My first thoughts are what the light spikes around some of the stars?

Gosh, you’re big, so absolutely huge.
We’re all really impressed down here I can tell you.

I feel the need to explain my first comment. I meant it makes me and even the problems in the USA and world right now seem very small and I am glad to have the perspective for a while.

It is actually gobsmacking to see the pictures!

It looked a little fuzzy…

Made me wish Star Trek was real and I’m crew.

My initial thought was I need to stop being stressed out about everything.

But I’ve already been a space fanatic since the Carl Sagan days, and the first Hubble Deep Space picture is my phone’s background picture.

I’ve always believed in and known progress was real, even if I won’t be here to see it.

The images are much sharper than before, whereas the Hubble deep field images had a lot less detail and were comparatively blurry.

Because of the clarity of the JW field images, I was able to recognize different galactic formations.

I think the spiral galaxy that’s about 70% of the distance from the center of the largest spiked image to the edge of the picture, along the line formed by the 0º (east) spike, is Andromeda.
If it is, then that specific image is 2,537,000 years old.

About 60% of the distance from the spiked image’s center to the upper right corner, there appears to be a quasar. If it is, then that light is at least 581 million years old.
For all I know, that object may no longer be a quasar.

About halfway between the quasar and the spiked image’s center, apparently there’s a circular galaxy that’s causing the gravitational lensing of a large volume of yellow-orange light.

Here’s Dr. Becky’s reaction. She and her colleagues seemed pretty excited by the spectrographs in particular.

@Brian 1946. Your observation stopped me in my tracks. To resolve that field of galaxies at those enormous distances, wouldn’t the light from a nearby monster like Andromeda drown out everything else? It would seem quite a trick to focus it all.

@HP

The JWT might have something like polarization or individual-pixel light adjusting, so that whatever glare a pixel emits can be substantially reduced or eliminated.

An equivocation I have is, if that is Andromeda and one of the other aforementioned objects is a quasar, then it seems that the quasar image should be a lot smaller.
So maybe the spiral galaxy is not Andromeda, but one that is a lot more distant.

I think that more likely, particularly in view of the statement that the field of objects is a section of “sky” the size of a grain of sand viewed at arm’s length. That’s a description I’ll never forget. There was something else that fascinating woman mentioned while explaining the picture; and that was that the team deliberately sought out the darkest most empty patch of space available.

But isn’t it wonderful to have a reason pop up for which we can be proud of an achievement in this country? I tried to post this answer here and it just disappeared somewhere. But what I wrote is that I am glad to finally have a ready topic to switch to when I pick up those snooty Summertime snots at the airport with their gleeful “what the hell is wrong with you Americans?”