Thousands of Never Seen Before Galaxies! James Webb's new images completely crushed Hubble's images

The universe was born in darkness 13.8 billion years ago, and even after the first stars and galaxies blazed into existence a few hundred million years later, these too stayed dark. Their brilliant light stretched by time and the expanding cosmos dimmed into the infrared, rendering them and other clues to our beginnings inaccessible to every eye and instrument. On Tuesday, the James Webb Space Telescope, which is the most powerful space observatory built yet, offered a spectacular slideshow of our previously invisible nascent cosmos. Ancient galaxies carpeted the sky like jewels on black velvet, fledgling stars shining out from deep within cumulus clouds of interstellar dust, hints of water vapor in the atmosphere of a remote exoplanet. Their sum is both a new vision of the universe and a view of the universe as it once appeared new. The $10 billion machine is showing that it's worth the huge investment. Webb's new images gave unprecedented looks at the deepest of space, and were a stunning improvement over similar images taken by its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope, which launched 32 years ago in 1990. To clarify, we can look at the same regions of the sky as from the view of these two telescopes. First off, let's start with Monday's images, the first full-color image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA describe it as the deepest, sharpest infrared view of the universe to date. There is a mind-blowing amount of data to marvel at in the first scientific James Webb image, which is a patch of sky roughly the size of a grain of sand when viewed from Earth, but contains thousands of galaxies, each of which likely contains billions of stars and planets. The image provides a stunning view of galaxy cluster SMACS0723 in never-before-seen detail. The light from those systems took so long to reach James Webb's instruments that the image essentially provides a window into the universe some 4.5 billion years ago. It's not the first time one of NASA's key instruments was pointed at this section of the sky. Images taken of SMACS0723 by the Hubble Space Telescope are available at the Relics Treasury Program. It's worth noting that the image taken by Hubble required 10 days of exposure. While the JWST's near-infrared camera image took only 12.5 hours to take the image revealed, the image shared by The Australian shows the entire James Webb image compared to the same section of the sky captured by Hubble. Zooming in makes the comparison even clearer. A Google and Fitbit UX designer, Jason Short, put together a GIF for a quick side-by-side impression of James Webb's image and the one taken by Hubble. The comparison highlights just how much clearer and brighter JWST's image is, meaning it essentially peers much further into the universe and thus further into the past. This area of space is particularly interesting for astronomers as the galaxy's gravitational pull distorts the light of more distant galaxies behind them, a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing. But that wasn't all. NASA has just revealed a stunning set of four more observations made by JWST. To highlight the technical prowess of the James Webb, the agency has put James Webb's images alongside earlier observations taken by Hubble of the same cosmic targets. One of Webb's first images is about Stéphane's quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies, which was used in the classic movie, It's a Wonderful Life. This cluster was first discovered in 1877, but Webb's images capture five galaxies, including a black hole that's from 290 million years ago. The image captured by Hubble appeared to show the galaxies surrounded by darkness, but Webb has turned that on its head and could provide insights into how early galaxies formed at the start of the universe. One infrared skyscape showed Stéphane's quintet, which is five galaxies, packed improbably tight in the constellation Pegasus. Four are so closely engaged in a gravitational dance that they will eventually merge. Indeed, Webb's image revealed a band of dust that was being heated up as two of the galaxies ripped stars from each other. The Southern Ring, or Eight Burst Nebula, seen below has a dying star at its center. It is located approximately 2,000 light years away from Earth. The incredible detail captured by Webb shows the nebula cloaked in dust and emitting gas, giving scientists a greater insight into the process a star goes through when it dies. The most striking image was of the Carina Nebula, a vast, swirling cloud of dust that is both a star nursery and home to some of the most luminous and explosive stars in the Milky Way. NASA saved its most stunning new image from James Webb for last, as it is the one that marks the most striking departure from earlier observations made by the Hubble. The cosmic cliffs captured by Webb were built on Hubble's imagery of the Carina Nebula. The striking image shows the star forming region NGC 3324 behind the Carina Nebula, located some 7,600 light years away. The mesmerizing image shows off the JWST near-infrared camera's capacity to peer through dust clouds to observe baby stars forming in a stellar nursery. By contrast, Hubble's image was only able to collect a fraction of the starlight. So why is there such a difference? The main reason James Webb has so much more power is due in part to its massive 21 feet or 6.5 meter diameter gold-coated mirror. Hubble's mirror, by comparison, is a much smaller 7.8 feet or 2.4 meters in diameter. As a result, Webb is six times larger and 100 times more powerful than Hubble. The James Webb also has more capacity for capturing distant stars in the infrared spectrum. As NASA pointed out, the instruments on Hubble can observe a small portion of the infrared spectrum from 0.8 to 2.5 microns. Infrared observations are particularly valuable when it comes to observing the earliest stars and galaxies in the universe, as many of these are hidden behind clouds of dust that absorb visible light. Crucially, infrared light is able to pierce these dust clouds. All of this makes us incredibly excited to see what else NASA and the James Webb have in store today. After all, James Webb is set to make history. Its final instrument was cleared for science on Monday, hours before Biden unveiled the Ultra Deep Field. Now that the space community has celebrated the beginning of the observatory's tenure, Webb will dive into its planned science observations, and scientists will also be able to analyze data from Webb's first targets right away. Startling new insights could start to stream in quickly as research begins on every conceivable scale in our universe, from our solar system to the very first galaxies. Regardless of what we find, Webb scientists mark today as the start of a new era, one in which Webb will redefine what we know about our universe and how we think about our place within it. Even SpaceX's CEO Elon Musk also expressed excitement about the potential of NASA's Webb. So, how about you? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below. Otherwise, that's it for today's episode. If you enjoy what my team and I are doing, you can become a patron through our Patreon link in the description below. 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