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  • we're looking at the universe's oldest and most distant

  • Galaxies in more detail than ever before.

  • Everywhere we look,

  • there's Galaxies everywhere.

  • Nasa on Tuesday released the first set of full color images captured with the

  • $10 billion James Webb space telescope.

  • More than six months after it was launched into orbit College lift off from a

  • tropical rainforest to the edge of time itself,

  • James Webb begins a voyage back to the birth of the universe.

  • These first images that Nasa has given us really are meant to

  • demonstrate webs incredible capabilities in terms of scientific

  • observations.

  • But how did web capture these first of their kind images?

  • And what could they tell us about the universe and life beyond our planet

  • Named after a former NASA administrator.

  • The James Webb Space Telescope is 100 times more powerful than its predecessor.

  • The Hubble Space Telescope,

  • which has been orbiting earth and taking pictures of distant stars for over 30

  • years.

  • Much of Webb's power comes from its massive primary mirror,

  • Which is more than 21 ft wide,

  • giving it more than six times the light collecting area.

  • That Hubble has a telescope sensitivity basically how much detail it can see

  • depends on the size of the mirror area because the more light telescopes

  • American collect the more able it is to see objects in finer detail that are

  • farther away.

  • Web is situated about one million miles away from Earth where it can get a clear view of

  • these details.

  • It also has a sun shield that protects it from external sources of light and heat like the

  • sun,

  • earth and moon,

  • because Web is operating much farther from Earth than Hubble is.

  • Web ultimately does have higher observing efficiency.

  • Webb also sees the universe differently.

  • Many telescopes are designed to primarily capture visible light,

  • which represents only a sliver of the spectrum of light emitted by stars and other

  • celestial objects.

  • In contrast,

  • Web captures a range of infrared light that is invisible to the human eye but makes

  • up much of the light that comes our way from the universe.

  • We're looking at some of the sort of faintest stars,

  • earliest stars and earliest Galaxies in unprecedented detail and will

  • also help us probe these planets outside of our solar system known as exoplanets.

  • Scientists can study these exoplanets by measuring the intensity of light at different

  • wavelengths and turning it into a graphical representation like this.

  • Exoplanet spectrum released Tuesday.

  • That's really what enables us hopefully to sort of peek into the atmospheres of these

  • exoplanets and ultimately maybe find one with a similar atmosphere to ours.

  • Scientists are specifically interested in the presence of water or methane because

  • those could indicate there was or is life on those exoplanets?

  • One of WebB's main scientific objectives really used to help us look

  • for signs of life on other planets outside our solar system.

  • Images like this.

  • Deep field observation captured by Web will also help scientists study the

  • development of celestial objects in the universe over time.

  • They help us resolve the details of fainter objects like stars and

  • Galaxies that were born much closer to the Big Bang than some of the

  • other ones that perhaps Hubble can see.

  • In the 32 years since it was launched,

  • Hubble has taken more than 1.5 million photos and helped extend our understanding of

  • the universe.

  • While the web mission is expected to continue for 20 years,

  • scientists are hopeful it will provide new insights about the formation of stars,

  • Galaxies,

  • planets and perhaps the presence of life.

  • Nasa has many telescopes,

  • but I think James WebB,

  • for various reasons,

  • has really captured the public's attention and imagination and I feel like people are

  • really rooting for this telescope and what it can tell us.

we're looking at the universe's oldest and most distant

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