Universe ID: 31188

Webb's Science Mission Begins: First Light Images As Compared to Hubble

Released on August 9, 2022

We wonder. It’s our nature. How did we get here?
Are we alone in the universe?
How does the universe work?

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is an ambitious scientific endeavor to answer these questions. Webb builds on the legacy of previous space-based telescopes to push the boundaries of human knowledge even further, to the formation of the first galaxies and the horizons of other worlds.

In these JWST First Light images, you can see the vast improvement in resolution and clarity over images of the same regions collected by the Hubble Space Telescope, and begin to understand all the new discoveries and science now possible.

The Cartwheel Galaxy, a rare ring galaxy once shrouded in dust and mystery, has been unveiled by the imaging capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

The galaxy, which formed as a result of a collision between a large spiral galaxy and another smaller galaxy, not only retained a lot of its spiral character, but has also experienced massive changes throughout its structure.

Webb’s high-precision instruments resolved individual stars and star-forming regions within the Cartwheel, and revealed the behavior of the black hole within its galactic center. These new details provide a renewed understanding of a galaxy in the midst of a slow transformation.