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James Webb first images – complete set of high resolution shots now live

1109 points by crhulls 4y ago

historynops 4y ago
A lot of the pictures have some bright stars with 6 long lens flare like points coming out of them in a consistent pattern. Is that because of the hexagonal shape of JWT's lenses/mirrors?
- deelowe 4y ago
  More or less. That's how they've explained it in the past.
- mackieem 4y ago
  Yeah, it's the hexagonal shape. The objects with the 6 diffraction spikes are overexposed compared to the rest of the objects in the picture, so they're generally brighter and/or closer objects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBcc3vpJTAU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBcc3vpJTAU
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  It's not the mirrors, it's the three struts supporting the reflector. Hubble shows four spikes because it has two struts. https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/james-webb-spikes/ https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/james-webb-spikes/ https://www.universetoday.com/155062/wondering-about-the-6-rays-coming-out-of-jwsts-test-image-heres-why-they-happen/ https://www.universetoday.com/155062/wondering-about-the-6-r...
  - krajzeg 4y ago
    I think you also had a similar comment and linked the same article under the previous topic about JWST's first image? The article is very informative, but my read of it is different: the three major "spikes" are in fact due to the hexagonal shape of the mirrors and how they're laid out. The struts also add three spikes, but: two of them coincide with the mirror spikes, while one of them (from the vertical strut) is visible on its own, and causes the smaller perfectly horizontal spike. The image I'm basing this on is in your article with a caption starting from "The point spread function for the James Webb Space Telescope" [1] [1]: https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/FOFC8ZPX0AIB-Ho.png?resize=1024,461 https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/FOFC8ZPX0AIB...
- rbliss 4y ago
  Yes, it's a combination of both the primary mirror and struts. The JWST website has a very helpful infographic explaining: https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01G529MX46J7AFK61GAMSHKSSN?page=2&filterUUID=91dfa083-c258-4f9f-bef1-8f40c26f4c97 https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01G529MX46J7...
  - MontagFTB 4y ago
    You beat me to it- incredibly helpful diagram. Thanks for sharing it.
  - coldpie 4y ago
    Wow, thanks for this link. The level of communication around JWST's technology and launch has been amazing, and this is a great example of that.
  - moffkalast 4y ago
    That's quite exhaustive, but it makes me wonder why isn't anything done to correct for that. Like for example instead of taking one 15h exposure, why not take three 5h exposures and roll the telescope 5 degrees in between, then median filter out the artefacts?
    - AnonMO 4y ago
      It took like 5 months to cool web to operational temperatures rolling the telescope would create so much heat all new images would be useless until it cools down again.
      - moffkalast 4y ago
        That makes no sense, they have to rotate it every time they take a picture otherwise they'd be looking at the same spot all the time. Motors don't emit that much heat and neither do torque wheels. Though I suppose now that I think of it, it's possible the main mirror assembly actually has no built in roll control but only pitch, since the yaw part could be done by moving the entire telescope while remaining shaded. I've never seen any videos showing the full movement, but the previews for LUVIOR show it having full 3 degree articulation relative to the heatsink segment, so I assumed the Webb also has it given that they're extremely similar designs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzFEaCYhmEs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzFEaCYhmEs
- MontagFTB 4y ago
  Here’s an infographic from NASA explaining the phenomenon: https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01G529MX46J7AFK61GAMSHKSSN https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01G529MX46J7...
- deanCommie 4y ago
  From the other comments, I understand why it's there, but i wish they would photoshop them out. The images take on a more synthetic and fake quality when the technical physical man-made constraints of our telescope get projected out onto the natural very much NON-man-made universe. Look at https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png and observe the incredible entropy in the nebula itself. The consistent, perfect, straight lines, of each star are jarring in the image.
  - deanCommie 4y ago
    to be clear - i realize these are for science. they shouldn't be edited for scientists. but we should edit them :)
- micromacrofoot 4y ago
  Also, I recall reading that those stars are so bright because they're within our galaxy... so they're the foreground really
charxyz 4y ago
Is there an easy way to just scroll through the images?
- Tagbert 4y ago
  Try this https://webbtelescope.org/resource-gallery/images https://webbtelescope.org/resource-gallery/images
- advantager 4y ago
  https://webbtelescope.org/news/first-images/gallery https://webbtelescope.org/news/first-images/gallery
- eutropia 4y ago
  I kinda love this comment. It highlights the absurd dichotomy between what "experts" see and what "lay people" see when they look at the same thing. Parent just wants to see some cool images from Earth's latest and greatest space telescope, preferably in a convenient way. Astrophysicists from NASA, ESA, et al. are hanging off the data and details from every last photon collected - each one having traveled billions of years from their origin deep in the past of our universe. With every point of light in the images, the instruments on Webb and associated computer analysis here on earth analyze each facet of the spectra, inferring the chemical composition of galaxies we may have never even seen before as a species - calculating how much spacetime expanded in the long and lonely journey of those photons hurtling through our universe for billions of years, path bent by warping gravity fields, colliding and remitting from galactic dust to finally arrive at a superchilled mirror segment more than a million miles from earth. But hey, can we just get a scrollable feed of these in a web-optimized image format? [ edit: I guess it wasn't clear -- I genuinely love the question. I'm not being sarcastic. YES obviously people want to look at the images and get excited from press release - YES obviously scientists are using a different data stream and not the press release site. What's really cool is that the same origin (12.5 hours of observing a tiny spec of sky) can be used for both. And genuinely the absurd dichotomy is funny, and cool. I guess there's so much sneering elitism on HN that it's easy to get lumped into the same boat. ]
  - 4y ago
leeoniya 4y ago
the Southern Ring Nebula (MIRI Image) is bizarrely very low res? https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/033/01G70C5F6Z698YC9E1DEBA3WET https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/033/01G...
- fumblebee 4y ago
  Wow you're right, huge difference in the sizes of the "full res" images: > MIRI: Full Res, 1306 X 1133, TIF (1.78 MB) [1] > NIR Cam: Full Res, 4833 X 4501, TIF (24.06 MB) [2] Maybe it's a mistake, they suggest it should offer an "incredible amount of detail": This Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image also offers an _incredible amount of detail_, including a cache of distant galaxies in the background. [1] https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/033/01G70C5F6Z698YC9E1DEBA3WET https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/033/01G... [2] https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/033/01G70BGTSYBHS69T7K3N3ASSEB https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/033/01G...
  - TremendousJudge 4y ago
    Well, it's incredible in the sense that I can't believe it
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    MIRI works at longer wavelengths than NIRCam, so its angular resolution is lower (longer wavelengths mean more diffraction). It also has a smaller field of view. Those two factors mean that it has fewer pixels per image.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  It's the effect of the wavelength of far infrared light being quite a bit longer. Think of a reduction to extremes: if you have a sensor that is a centimeter square and you're trying to 'catch' a wave that is a meter long there is a fair chance the sensor will be bypassed entirely, but if you are trying to catch millimeter waves your sensor will be easily able to capture the photons. The most practical example of this effect is the size of radio antennae, they get longer as the wavelength gets longer.
jonplackett 4y ago
It would be great if they did a before and after shot. Like, here’s what we could see at this point in space before. Now we can see… THIS!
- deelowe 4y ago
  https://petapixel.com/2022/07/11/comparing-hubble-to-james-webb-the-difference-in-detail-is-astounding/ https://petapixel.com/2022/07/11/comparing-hubble-to-james-w...
  - capableweb 4y ago
    Yeah, that's not very good implementation. PetaPixel usually have good content, but using a GIF to compare these two images? Come on! You can see the compression artifacts very easily.
    - yreg 4y ago
      How about this one, by a user from here? https://blog.wolfd.me/hubble-jwst/ https://blog.wolfd.me/hubble-jwst/
      - boriskourt 4y ago
        This is a great way to show all the new distant details. Amazing to think that so many of the artifacts in Hubble's total darkness are galaxies upon galaxies.
    - deelowe 4y ago
      This was also recently posted on reddit: https://johnedchristensen.github.io/WebbCompare/ https://johnedchristensen.github.io/WebbCompare/
      - jonplackett 4y ago
        Was J J Abrahams involved in Webb, because it really seems to produce nice lens flair
crhulls 4y ago
Here is a Hubble side by side of the deep field for comparison https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10159217085846758&set=gm.10160069710501170&type=3&mibextid=wxGVb6 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10159217085846758&se...
- throwaway5752 4y ago
  My understanding is that it is also 12-13 hours of exposure for the Webb image vs weeks for Hubble.
  - pavon 4y ago
    That is incorrect. The famous Hubble Ultra Deep Field image[1] took 11.3 days of imaging spread over four months (because of high demand to use Hubble). However, that is a different part of the sky. The Hubble image shown here was taken as part of RELICS[2], a survey of images to find good candidates for JWST to image, and was only exposed for 1.7 hours (5 orbits at ~20 minutes each), compared to JWST's exposure time of 12.5 hours. So comparisons between between Hubble and JWST for that particular shot are not fair to Hubble. [1]https://esahubble.org/images/heic0611b/ https://esahubble.org/images/heic0611b/ [2]https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/relics/ https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/relics/
- kzrdude 4y ago
  Right and it's slightly rotated, 20-30 degrees (guess). Just for others that try to line them up
- quaintdev 4y ago
  A GIF comparing both Hubble and JWST https://i.redd.it/9uyhwijeo0b91.gif https://i.redd.it/9uyhwijeo0b91.gif
  - wolfd 4y ago
    I made this page (posted in another thread yesterday) because I was rather underwhelmed by the .gif. I think the page shows in much better detail the difference between the telescopes' capabilities. https://blog.wolfd.me/hubble-jwst/ https://blog.wolfd.me/hubble-jwst/ (If you're on mobile, you should be able to zoom in and still use the slider)
Shadonototra 4y ago
This website is one of the worst i ever seen Low res pictures on announcement day fire this web dev
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Seriously, very frustrating and almost anxiety-provoking.
  - drewcon 4y ago
    Hi res downloads are available on the left side rail.
- Hikikomori 4y ago
  > Full Res, 14575 X 8441, TIF (136.99 MB) If this is low res then what is high res?
quickthrower2 4y ago
Nice night to get insomnia!
silentsea90 4y ago
Way to brighten my day with awe and wonder, way to ruin my day with existential dread about our place in the universe.
- sho_hn 4y ago
  Existential dread pro-tip: The Wikipedia page on "Ultimate fate of the universe" is a fantastic way to compell the question of why anything ultimately matters. Coming up with personal answers to this is the ultimate character resolve exercise!
  - yreg 4y ago
    I found Kurzgesagt's video on Optimistic Nihilism helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14
    - Agamus 4y ago
      Awesome link, thank you. Nietzsche's career was an exercise in creating and promoting the concept of 'creative nihilism' as an alternative to existential pessimism, which works for me!
      - arvinsim 4y ago
        Also shown in this XKCD[1] [1] https://xkcd.com/167/ https://xkcd.com/167/
  - idiotsecant 4y ago
    Nothing matters. You live for a while and then you die, but it sure can be a cool trip getting there!
    - silvi9 4y ago
      You think nothing matters? How can you be so sure?
alberth 4y ago
Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t most astronomy photos colorized (and not actually such vivid colors in real life).
- bognition 4y ago
  Yes. The photon collectors on JWT detect infra red which is not visible to humans.
- banana_giraffe 4y ago
  Yes. Or rather, it's a color palette mapping whatever range of the EM spectrum the image is gathered with to something we humans can see. And yes, sometimes the mapping is done to make things look nice.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  Absolutely, these objects would be completely invisible when using visible light so it is all false color, just like a FLIR would show you an image of the infra red light emitted by an object by shifting it to a spectrum that you can directly perceive.
- deanCommie 4y ago
  What is real life? What are vivid colors? All electromagnetic radiation is the same. In the sense that every proton/neutron is the same. But adding a few more protons/neutrons creates an entirely new element, with entirely new chemical properties. From something simple come incredibly new powerful behaviours. So just as Iron is massively different from Plutonium, Microwaves are massively different from Gamma rays. What we call "colors", or "visible light" is not particularly special, except to us, and our specific human biology. It feels more real because it's visible to us, but it's not on the grand scale of the universe. What we're observing through these telescopes isn't a dog chasing a ball. We're seeing stuff billions of light years away, millions of light years in size, billions of years ago. Passing by trillions of other stars and planets on the way. These objects are emitting a gargantuan amount of information. Why should we only present the information that happens to be in the same subset as what our primitive primate vision cones can process? So, no, if you were to teleport to the nebula/galaxy that we're showing images for, it wouldn't look exactly like that to your human eyes. Instead, what you're seeing is what a god with perfect vision of the universe would see. You're seeing the universe for what it is, not just the part of it that is presented to humans.
anewpersonality 4y ago
Dumb question. Why can’t we focus on a single exoplanet, look for mountains, grass, buildings? Why am I so stupid but isn’t this the obvious thing to do?
- whatshisface 4y ago
  There aren't telescopes big enough to do that.
  - anewpersonality 4y ago
    - capableweb 4y ago
      > Seeing a bunch of pretty nebulae with artificial colorimg is no longer inspiring, it looks like it could have come out of DALL-E Yeah, that's totally how science works! You can't confirm/reject any theories based on pictures that a AI generates, but I guess you'll tell me that "sure we can" with some more hyperbole.
    - throwaway4aday 4y ago
      If you're not inspired by these images and the accompanying detail on why they are being taken (especially the exoplanet spectroscopic surveys) then you just aren't thinking hard enough about them.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  We can, and do. They're so far away that even our largest telescopes see only a few pixels. Examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HR_8799_Orbiting_Exoplanets.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HR_8799_Orbiting_Exoplane... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beta_Pictoris_b_in_Motion.webm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beta_Pictoris_b_in_Motion... When Hubble looked at Pluto, it was a low-detail blur ("The Hubble raw images are a few pixels wide"), and that's within our solar system. https://esahubble.org/images/opo1006h/ https://esahubble.org/images/opo1006h/ Remember, the first exoplanet was detected in 1992, and not by imaging; prior to that we didn't even know if they existed at all. JWST's planning started in 1996.
sk8terboi 4y ago
323 4y ago
I am confused because I thought it was an infrared telescope? Are these images as received, or are they frequency shifted post processed into the visible range?
- whimsicalism 4y ago
  Almost all images are frequency shifted, often just to what makes things look cool. Still makes it cool IMO!
- dougmwne 4y ago
  Yes, they are frequency shifted. Many telescope images are in false color. I can understand that we are interested in visible light since that’s most within our experience, but the human eye was not evolved for the astronomical and universal so we need some help. Frequency shifting is a tool just like a lens.
- airstrike 4y ago
  Did you expect 100% black jpgs all around?
- clint 4y ago
  Humans cannot see infrared light
  - astrange 4y ago
    You can feel it if it's transmitted as heat rays.
- willis936 4y ago
  As others have said: there is frequency shifting done. However, it is important to know that distant galaxies are red shifted making the visible spectrum be in IR. In the case of JWST the frequency shifted images may be close to the non-redshifted visible spectrum.
- layer8 4y ago
  It’s just your monitor doesn’t support infrared color space and therefore shows the wrong colors. ;)
kryptn 4y ago
I've seen this comparison floating around for the deep field. https://imgsli.com/MTE2Mjc3 https://imgsli.com/MTE2Mjc3
slfnflctd 4y ago
The exoplanet analysis is what I'm most intrigued by. They're getting much more data than in the past on these. Of course they went for an easy gas giant target first (it has lots of water, which is great), but those Earth-like planets in the Goldilocks zone are gonna be some of the most exciting stuff that comes out of this. Looking forward to it.
- saiya-jin 4y ago
  1150 light years away! Imagine how much more details can be detected for stuff within 50 light years. Really, they should be already building 2nd James Webb. I am sure even 10 of them would get 100% utilization for their whole lifetime. I can only imagine what kind of needless political game is happening around prioritization of time slots for it. Or start working on next-gen, bigger, more resilient etc. It costs peanuts compared to any significant CERN upgrade and we have so much room to progress in astronomy (aka understanding our home, this universe) just by getting more data and resolution.
  - jacquesm 4y ago
    I fear there won't be any more JWSTs at all. People are already bitching about how much it cost and that all it does is make pretty pictures right here in this thread and there were many times that it came within a hair of having its budget slashed. Super happy we have one JWST, and I hope fervently that it will outlast its original mission by a large fraction, every sign right now points in that direction.
    - coldpie 4y ago
      > People are already bitching about how much it cost I like to point out that Microsoft could have paid for seven JWSTs (development costs and all) with what they paid for one Activision.
      - radicaldreamer 4y ago
        Now imagine the funding for all the spy satellite programs over the past few decades...
toomuchtodo 4y ago
Was worth every penny.
chaps 4y ago
Direct links -- Stephan's Quintet (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Image): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png Southern Ring Nebula (NIRCam and MIRI Images Side by Side): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R28V7S4AXDN8NG5QCPGE3.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R28V7S4AXDN8NG5QCPGE3.png “Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Image): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png Webb's First Deep Field (NIRCam Image): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DDBW5NNXTJV8PGHB0465QP.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DDBW5NNXTJV8PGHB0465QP.png Exoplanet WASP-96 b (NIRISS Transmission Spectrum): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7NBXDHYYSVBP2M476PRGG3A.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7NBXDHYYSVBP2M476PRGG3A.png
- rootusrootus 4y ago
  Thanks for the direct links! > Webb's First Deep Field (NIRCam Image) Is this image distorted in any way at all? It feels like the galaxies are somehow oriented around a center spot. Not all of them, but enough to give the image a distorted feeling. Probably it's just my mind pattern matching against something that doesn't really exist.
  - palmtree3000 4y ago
    Gravitational lensing. From the description[0]: Other features include the prominent arcs in this field. The powerful gravitational field of a galaxy cluster can bend the light rays from more distant galaxies behind it, just as a magnifying glass bends and warps images. Stars are also captured with prominent diffraction spikes, as they appear brighter at shorter wavelengths. [0] https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2022/news-2022-035?Collection=First%20Images https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2022/news-2...
    - rootusrootus 4y ago
      Ah, that makes perfect sense. I guess I should have RTFM rather than just gawk at the pictures. Thanks for the ELI5!
dangerwill 4y ago
whiteboardr 4y ago
Watching the livestream i was more than surprised, that color correction actually happens in Photoshop. Also, there seem to be multiple layer-masks involved for specific regions and objects. I get that you can shift and composite color, based on hue, apply filters etc, but: Photoshop? Curious if anyone can explain, that what we see is actual science or some touched up version of objects in our universe. p.s.: What struck me the most is the absence of noise, especially for the deep field photo. Hubble took many exposures over weeks, which normally would allow for reliable reduction of noise, webb took some shots over the course of hours and there’s hardly any noise to see. Weirdest part is seeing them just “healing brushing” away some dots - how is the decision process on altering images like that? (edit for typos)
- roywiggins 4y ago
  Webb's primary camera is infrared, so there is by necessity a choice to be made with how to present the data for humans who can't see in infrared.
  - whiteboardr 4y ago
    I am aware. (And have been eagerly waiting for this moment for ages) It just seems “unscientific” to just use Photoshop and above all curious about the set of rules and algorithms, that enables them to decide which hue to pick for which region, levels, etc.
    - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
      Any real science will be done on the raw images, not on the color composites released for the public. These color composite images really show off how awesome JWST is. They're meant for the public to enjoy (astronomers enjoy them too).
    - vishnugupta 4y ago
      The person seen photoshopping very briefly talked about how he picks different colours for different region/light-frequency. But yes, more details will definitely be helpful. Also I guess they could open-source the untouched photos for other artists and photoshop experts to play around?
matesz 4y ago
Not to spoil anything, but anybody else here finding these results quite underwelming?
- Jorchime 4y ago
  Hubbles pictures were probably new to you, so in a sense this is "just" an iteration. I think you just had the perspective/expectation that this will be new as well. Maybe a bit much for the very first public results of a scientific experiment.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  I think that'll depend how much you read. If you look only at the picture, it's gonna be hard to tell versus, say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field#/media/File:HubbleDeepField.800px.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field#/media/File:... for the deep-field shot or https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2007/16/2099-Image.html https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2007/16/2099-Im... for the Carina Nebula shot. If you read the details, the fact that JWST can resolve much dimmer light sources much more quickly than Hubble ever had a hope of should be fairly compelling from a "how much science can we do?" standpoint.
- willis936 4y ago
  A mass spec of a galaxy 13.1 Bn years ago is pretty amazing and informs new answers to the biggest questions of the universe. None of these images really stretch the legs of the instrument either. A hot jupiter is not an interesting exoplanet. It's a taste.
- twojacobtwo 4y ago
  I'm super curious how you could find these underwhelming. My mind is blown just scrolling across each of the images. What exactly were you expecting from them?
  - matesz 4y ago
    I agree, not only pictures are amazing, but the idea that is actually works, just crazy. I ment more in the context of images taken by Hubble telescope - you know, all the hype. 25 years of work, 40mln hours worked, billions spent. Pictures are better than hubbles, but not by orders of magnitude, which is what I expected. That's why underwhelming.
uhtred 4y ago
So if they point this thing at an exoplanet and it has advanced life will we see a picture much the same as when we see a photo of earth taken from the space station? i.e. city lights etc?
- boriskourt 4y ago
  Already answered in sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32072067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32072067
oittaa 4y ago
Unfortunately the NASA stream online was a disaster. Choppy video and it seemed like nobody had prepared anything. Also 720p in 2022... Don't get me wrong, the images are amazing, but when small startups like Rocket Lab can have uninterrupted streams all the way to the orbit, but NASA stream from a studio looks more amateurish than your average 13-year-old Fortnite player on Twitch, it leaves a pretty bad impression.
- the_cat_kittles 4y ago
  the classic "hacker news landing page critique" applied to nasa, love it
- VerminOctopus1 4y ago
  I think NASA’s funding generally goes towards doing science rather than optimizing their Fortnite streams
- dan_quixote 4y ago
  I'm not sure if NASA or the White House directed that stream. I've seen much better-organized streams from NASA. It wasn't just technically flawed. It was late, abrupt, disjointed and the talking points appeared to be delivered by people that had little knowledge in the matter. I can't believe I saw that level of disorganization from our highest executive office.
- ehsankia 4y ago
  Seriously it was such a mess. Lag aside, they had MULTIPLE cases of either someone's mic not being on, or someone with a hot mic after they were done whispering over the stream. Almost every single transition to scientists in other cities failed. This is really unfortunate because they hyped up this event big time. They announced it two weeks in advance, had a countdown, even had scientists do "reaction" videos to seeing the photos for the first time... People often underestimate how insanely hard it is to put something like this together, but I'm surprised NASA did, It's not like it's the first time NASA does a livecast.
lbrito 4y ago
I remember reading something in the lines of: we know this nebula to be composed of gasses X and Y, which have colors A and B. As a layman it was unclear to me if this statement means they are applying a color palette to a monochrome image(s) using some educated guesses or something else. Is infrared the only (or the most convenient, most useful etc) spectrum visible given the great distance? If we could get close enough, I suppose we would see things in clearer visible light. Without any enhancements, long exposures etc, would they be anywhere as colorful as the nebula images? Would they be visible to us at all, or are the emissions too weak even up close to make any impression to our eyes?
- zanecodes 4y ago
  (Disclaimer: I am not an astronomer) As you may be aware, all digital images are composed of a color palette applied to monochrome images, it just so happens that we usually pick a color palette of red, green, and blue, which ideally correspond as closely as possible to the three wavelengths of light to which the imaging sensors in our cameras (and also our eyes) are sensitive, thus reproducing what our eyes would see in person. In the case of JWST, mid- and far-infrared sensors were chosen for several reasons, the first being that due to the accelerating expansion of the universe, light from further away (equivalently, light from further back in time) has been stretched out along its path of travel, causing its wavelength to be shifted further into the infrared spectrum. Another possible reason is that infrared wavelengths penetrate the interstellar dust clouds much better than visible or ultraviolet light, allowing us to see stars and galaxies that were previously hidden by dust. Since JWST captures wavelengths of light that we can't see, we have to apply some sort of visible-light palette to the monochrome images it sends back. At the bottom of this image, you can see which wavelengths were mapped to which visible-light colors: https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7N9A6934R1WRWBJY1ZXB98B.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7N9A6934R1WRWBJY1ZXB98B.png One key aspect of this mapping is that the order of wavelengths has been preserved; shorter IR wavelengths are colored blue while longer ones are colored red. It's likely that this mapping is non-linear though, so the relative distances between IR wavelengths are not the same as the distances between the hues in the image, and this mapping was chosen to maximize the visible detail in the resulting image, as well as to highlight scientifically relevant information such as dust clouds and areas of star formation, so it's not totally arbitrary. In addition, the dynamic range of JWST is much much larger than the pixels in any display. The raw data values probably range from 0 to some hundreds of thousands, while your display's pixel brightness can only go from 0 to 255 (or maybe 1023, if you have a 10-bit HDR display). While we could simply map the maximum pixel value to 255 and compress everything else in between, this would lose nearly all of the detail present in the darker regions of the images, compressing them to 0. Instead, a non-linear brightness mapping is applied, to best represent all the information present in darker regions without blowing out the bright stars and galaxies. So to answer your questions, the colors shown in the images are not what you would see in person. Without any enhancements you probably wouldn't be able to see much if any of the dust clouds, and many of the redder galaxies would not be visible to you at all, while all the rest would be different hues than the ones shown (probably mostly whites, yellows, and reds).
datadata 4y ago
When I was observing the 2017 total solar eclipse, my attention was interrupted for a few seconds by someone who was driving a car. Their headlights turned on as they kept driving, not stopping for a minute to see something that for a given place on earth happens once every four centuries. The few people dismissing this reminded me of that experience.
- sixstringtheory 4y ago
  I know people who care greatly about the JWST but will go around the company slack belittling people for wishing happy new year, wielding a cosmic cudgel of unimportance on the day. But everything humans find important are only that due to human and sociological constructs, whether calendrical or cosmological. Nothing matters, except what matters to you. The unthinking matter of nature is utterly indifferent (as far as we know or think). – someone who drove a long, long way to see the same solar eclipse, no regrets!
- InCityDreams 4y ago
  ...may have been a doctor on a particularly important call.
aruanavekar 4y ago
Great pictures https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/07/12/1111002820/webb-telescope-images-nasa https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/07/12/11110028...
FailMore 4y ago
THIS IS SOOOO AWESOME. So happy to be alive with this happening!
samstave 4y ago
Need to get new Phil Mosbey prints of this on hex prints. (Phil mosbey is the astro-photographer who made the hex print of JWT which nasa bought and placed in lobby (if you havent seen his space calandar, its amazing.) he grew up with my younger brother, and I have some art/prints in my house of his. - Although, I agree with some other folks ; Why cant we point Hubble or JWT at the planets in our solar system, or the closest objects to us. The deep-field view of both hubble and JWT are wonderful, but whats the diff on pointing it to closer objects. -- Further, /noStupidQuestions: Why at out level of tech and the fact that all of these projects are funded by tax money (as a portion) can we not have live streaming (even if high latency) from all such projects? What is the national security preventing us from having a space (or any other) telescope funded by public taxes from having the ability to see what it sees, even if with reasonable delay... Wouldn't it be interesting to bounty analysis from such ; Basically, allow for arm-chair amateur space-folks-ham-radio-style to do submit findings for bounties on discoveries?
smudgy 4y ago
I saw it and I started crying, it's beautiful beyond description and belief.
- threads2 4y ago
  hahaha thanks for the laugh
skilled 4y ago
I hope someone from NASA will read this or perhaps someone can forward this message, but all we want (mere mortal humans) is quick access to the direct links to the highest resolution images. From what I can tell it takes anywhere from 5 (if you know what you're doing) to 10 clicks (once you understand the UI) to find all the links for a -singular- image. Thanks nonetheless.
- dzikimarian 4y ago
  This is pretty easy option https://webbtelescope.org/news/news-releases?Collection=First%20Images https://webbtelescope.org/news/news-releases?Collection=Firs... 1. Pick subject 2. Pick image which interests you (bottom) 3. Pick resolution you need (left sidebar)
taftster 4y ago
So, am I to get this right? The universe, it's big. Like really big?
- SapporoChris 4y ago
  Not only is the universe big, really big. Unimaginably big. You are also by comparison, small, unimaginably small. Infinitesimally small. Be that as it may, do the best you can. Less flippantly, the number of galaxies in the images is just mind boggling. I'm looking forward to seeing 3d explorable map of the galaxies someday. I know it will happen if it hasn't already.
- hulahoof 4y ago
  I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.
tpae 4y ago
What is that brightest light?
divbzero 4y ago
Somewhere in one of those distant galaxies, a modestly advanced life form has deployed their first infrared telescope into orbit around their star system and captured a deep field image that happens to contain our Milky Way. Discussions in their hive brain include speculation on life existing beyond their star system.
bdefore 4y ago
All the additional detail in the nebulae shots in particular! What's resonating with me today: As a web dev, I cannot imagine the feeling of so much dedication and effort from so many people finally unfolding to release after 30 years. One moonshot longer than full careers. Some of those responsible (hundreds? thousands?) retired or no longer with us. What a sacrifice, and what an achievement.
dang 4y ago
Recent and related: James Webb Telescope First Images – Livestream - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32070531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32070531 - July 2022 (8 comments) Deepest infrared image of universe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32062849 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32062849 - July 2022 (334 comments) James Webb Space Telescope White House Briefing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32062139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32062139 - July 2022 (91 comments)
mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
Disclaimer: IANA scientist of any sort, just a huge nerd. I've been interested in astronomy since I learned to read, and JWST has been planned for most of my life(all but 2 years if you count all explorations of ideas for a post-hubble telescope since about 95). I've been waiting for this my whole life, so this feels like a strangely personal event to me even though I had nothing to do with it myself. It's so hard to even put into words the tremendousness of this technological and scientific achievement, so I won't try. Anyway, enough sap. I'm super stoked that they've already started taking spectra of exoplanets. This one was sort of an "easier" one but the detail was unprecedented as with all the other observations. I can't wait to see some results on some of these smaller rocky planets in their star's "goldilocks zone". These are the planets that have simply been out of reach until now, and are the most interesting in terms of searching for signs of life.
smm11 4y ago
This is the point in Contact when the crazy religious guy pushes the button.
peanut_worm 4y ago
Other than the big bright ones (which I guess are nearby stars) are all these things different galaxies?
- perlgeek 4y ago
  Yes. This was an image of a relatively "empty" portion of sky (no stars nearby), so anything you can see has to be pretty bright by itself, which means galaxy, not star.
  - pqdbr 4y ago
    Does that also include the very tiny little dots? I have the same question as OP, and I thought the tiny dots were single stars, and the little bigger ones (brighter) were galaxies.
k4ch0w 4y ago
I’m super proud of all our scientists for this work. It’s honestly one of the most astounding photos I’ve ever looked at.
turdnagel 4y ago
This kind of stuff is really awe-inspiring. I have a couple of questions for anyone who is knowledgeable on the subject: 1. Looking at the light from the tiny red-shifted galaxies that are ~13 billion years old... would the Milky Way appear the same to an observer ~13 billion ly from us? 2. What is the cause of the star pointed artifacts (specifically, having 6 major "points") for particularly bright objects? If you zoom in closely on any one of the points, you can almost make out a hex grid, as if the shape of the telescope's mirrors is the cause. Is that correct?
- ip26 4y ago
  The points are caused by the support arms of the secondary mirror.
- opwieurposiu 4y ago
  1. Yes pretty much. 2. Yes the artifact shape is related to the mirror shape, and the support arms which block some light. this is called a Diffraction spike. There are a bunch of fake web telescope image videos on YouTube with 4pointed diffraction spikes so you can tell they are taken from a different telescope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike
- 12ian34 4y ago
  on 1., I'm not sure but I'd guess so, yes. on 2., you are seeing Diffraction Spikes[0] which are artefacts of the telescope's design. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike
AlexFielder 4y ago
Serious question: How do I explain this to my nine year old?
- sbierwagen 4y ago
  Explain what? There's a telescope in space?
- 87tau 4y ago
  Unsure what you want to explain or what your nine year old already knows, but generally I would start by explaining to him/her/them that these are pictures of very far away and enormous objects taken from a telescope that is located further away than the moon. The telescope takes pictures in a different frequency band, like an infrared camera. These pictures are then color mapped to blue, green yellow and other colors that you normally see because just black and white image are boring to look at.
frebord 4y ago
Is there any attempt or is it even possible to correct for the distortion caused by the gravitational lensing?
NeutralForest 4y ago
Absolutely breathtaking that such a tiny window inside the universe would cover so much.
- adonovan 4y ago
  It always blows my mind that when you look at the night sky, aside from 7 planets and only 2 galaxies, every point of light you see is a star; but when these space telescopes point at a patch of nothingness, we see a starry night where every point of light is a (freaking) galaxy.
mparnisari 4y ago
I have no idea what i'm looking at or how much effort this took but it looks gorgeous and it's my new desktop background.
amelius 4y ago
I'd like to see some shots of Earth too.
yaya69 4y ago
WebbWeaver 4y ago
I really appreciate the work of the US Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories for creating HITRAN. HITRAN is a molecular spectroscopic database used to look molecules in gas and atmosphere. They are the standard archive for transmission and radiance calculations. Without their groundwork we would not be as good at understanding planetary atmospheres. https://hitran.org/ https://hitran.org/ free after registration https://hitran.org/media/refs/HITRAN-2020.pdf https://hitran.org/media/refs/HITRAN-2020.pdf HAPI (programming interface manual) https://hitran.org/static/hapi/hapi_manual.pdf https://hitran.org/static/hapi/hapi_manual.pdf Youtube tutorials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiKuigtFahk&list=PLqOG3cBizTUFQw5lwpkCpQFCVuxHTZgrT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiKuigtFahk&list=PLqOG3cBizT... It is very easy to use and might help to understand WASP-96 b transmission spectrum. https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7NBXDHYYSVBP2M476PRGG3A.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7NBXDHYYSVBP2M476PRGG3A.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_absorption_by_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_absorption_by_...
- WebbWeaver 4y ago
  Aww yiss new images! Extremely generous analysis and 3d orientation. https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G7F6AWJNTF1G0ZWP5ESGSFXF https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G... https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G7FJFCNKGARKRFM13FWQ881E https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G... https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/035/01G7HRYVGM1TKW556NVJ1BHPDZ?page=2&filterUUID=91dfa083-c258-4f9f-bef1-8f40c26f4c97 https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/035/01G... https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G7FG9P3BVP4CPK1QHX0RG5XN https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G...
tempaccount2022 4y ago
cool
Dopameaner 4y ago
I didnt realize we had a 3d map of dark matter. Something to be mindful of now. Gathered the summary from the Royal Observatory’s website[1] regarding Hubble's major contributions " - Helped pin down the age for the universe now known to be 13.8 billion years, roughly three times the age of Earth. - Discovered two moons of Pluto, Nix and Hydra. - Helped determine the rate at which the universe is expanding. - Discovered that nearly every major galaxy is anchored by a black hole at the centre. - Created a 3-D map of dark matter."
grendelt 4y ago
looks like they changed the lensflare from 4 points to 6... a 50% increase!
Barrera 4y ago
It's easy to lose sight of this in the amazing images: > In a dream come true for exoplaneteers, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has demonstrated its unprecedented ability to analyze the atmosphere of a planet more than 1,000 light-years away. With the combined forces of its 270-square-foot mirror, precision spectrographs, and sensitive detectors, Webb has – in a single observation – revealed the unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence for clouds that were thought not to exist based on prior observations. The transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant WASP-96 b, made using Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph, provides just a glimpse into the brilliant future of exoplanet research with Webb. and later: > WASP-96 b is one of more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets in the Milky Way. Located roughly 1,150 light-years away in the southern-sky constellation Phoenix, it represents a type of gas giant that has no direct analog in our solar system. With a mass less than half that of Jupiter and a diameter 1.2 times greater, WASP-96 b is much puffier than any planet orbiting our Sun. And with a temperature greater than 1000°F, it is significantly hotter. WASP-96 b orbits extremely close to its Sun-like star, just one-ninth of the distance between Mercury and the Sun, completing one circuit every 3½ Earth-days.
pbj1968 4y ago
Sawdust and farts. Nobody leaves this planet alive.
imchillyb 4y ago
“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” -D.A....R.I.P.
biggyjump 4y ago
<https://www.stsci.edu/files/live/sites/www/files/home/jwst/documentation/_documents/jwst-science-performance-report.pdf https://www.stsci.edu/files/live/sites/www/files/home/jwst/d...> The science performance report of JWST is a fascinating read. Some of the highlights that sent me down a rabbit-hole - On Predicted lifetime of consumables - Before launch, JWST was required to carry propellant for at least 10.5 years of mission lifetime. Now that JWST is in orbit around L2, it is clear that the remaining propellant will last for more than 20 years of mission lifetime. - On Orbit - Orbit around L2 is maintained through regular station-keeping burns, which are scheduled every three weeks - On observatory lifetime - At present, the largest source of uncertainty is long term effects of micrometeoroid impacts that slowly degrade the primary mirror. - On Other spacecraft performance - JWST is now generating 1.5 kW to match the power load, with a capability of > 2 kW - On Fault management - Of the 344 single point failures at launch, almost all of them related to deployments, only 49 remain; these are common to most science missions (for example, only one set of propellant tanks, only one high gain antenna) The section on "Pointing and guiding" which mentions how complex sub-systems interact to achieve "line-of-sight stabilization" and how its not possible to test those systems together in an end-to-end fashion on the ground is interesting.
alionaguseva 4y ago
Hey! How about 1.4 Gigapixel image of the galaxy? The new photos are stunning. Let's Enhance's AI made them super high res for you to enjoy the clearest view of the Universe. Download: 80MP/140MB https://drive.google.com/file/d/150VhXVEfYXmr70LrrZxQ50pU0u5H9VXV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/150VhXVEfYXmr70LrrZxQ50pU0u5... 1.4GP/2.5GB (note: not every image viewer can handle a file this big) https://drive.google.com/file/d/14x__QDUmrIvLnlxoSOksu3mgpeXj3mjQ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/14x__QDUmrIvLnlxoSOksu3mgpeX...

1109 points by crhulls 4y ago

A lot of the pictures have some bright stars with 6 long lens flare like points coming out of them in a consistent pattern. Is that because of the hexagonal shape of JWT's lenses/mirrors?

deelowe 4y ago
More or less. That's how they've explained it in the past.
mackieem 4y ago
Yeah, it's the hexagonal shape. The objects with the 6 diffraction spikes are overexposed compared to the rest of the objects in the picture, so they're generally brighter and/or closer objects. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBcc3vpJTAU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBcc3vpJTAU
ceejayoz 4y ago
It's not the mirrors, it's the three struts supporting the reflector. Hubble shows four spikes because it has two struts. https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/james-webb-spikes/ https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/james-webb-spikes/ https://www.universetoday.com/155062/wondering-about-the-6-rays-coming-out-of-jwsts-test-image-heres-why-they-happen/ https://www.universetoday.com/155062/wondering-about-the-6-r...
- krajzeg 4y ago
  I think you also had a similar comment and linked the same article under the previous topic about JWST's first image? The article is very informative, but my read of it is different: the three major "spikes" are in fact due to the hexagonal shape of the mirrors and how they're laid out. The struts also add three spikes, but: two of them coincide with the mirror spikes, while one of them (from the vertical strut) is visible on its own, and causes the smaller perfectly horizontal spike. The image I'm basing this on is in your article with a caption starting from "The point spread function for the James Webb Space Telescope" [1] [1]: https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/FOFC8ZPX0AIB-Ho.png?resize=1024,461 https://bigthink.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/FOFC8ZPX0AIB...
rbliss 4y ago
Yes, it's a combination of both the primary mirror and struts. The JWST website has a very helpful infographic explaining: https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01G529MX46J7AFK61GAMSHKSSN?page=2&filterUUID=91dfa083-c258-4f9f-bef1-8f40c26f4c97 https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01G529MX46J7...
- MontagFTB 4y ago
  You beat me to it- incredibly helpful diagram. Thanks for sharing it.
- coldpie 4y ago
  Wow, thanks for this link. The level of communication around JWST's technology and launch has been amazing, and this is a great example of that.
- moffkalast 4y ago
  That's quite exhaustive, but it makes me wonder why isn't anything done to correct for that. Like for example instead of taking one 15h exposure, why not take three 5h exposures and roll the telescope 5 degrees in between, then median filter out the artefacts?
  - AnonMO 4y ago
    It took like 5 months to cool web to operational temperatures rolling the telescope would create so much heat all new images would be useless until it cools down again.
    - moffkalast 4y ago
      That makes no sense, they have to rotate it every time they take a picture otherwise they'd be looking at the same spot all the time. Motors don't emit that much heat and neither do torque wheels. Though I suppose now that I think of it, it's possible the main mirror assembly actually has no built in roll control but only pitch, since the yaw part could be done by moving the entire telescope while remaining shaded. I've never seen any videos showing the full movement, but the previews for LUVIOR show it having full 3 degree articulation relative to the heatsink segment, so I assumed the Webb also has it given that they're extremely similar designs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzFEaCYhmEs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzFEaCYhmEs
MontagFTB 4y ago
Here’s an infographic from NASA explaining the phenomenon: https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01G529MX46J7AFK61GAMSHKSSN https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/01G529MX46J7...
deanCommie 4y ago
From the other comments, I understand why it's there, but i wish they would photoshop them out. The images take on a more synthetic and fake quality when the technical physical man-made constraints of our telescope get projected out onto the natural very much NON-man-made universe. Look at https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png and observe the incredible entropy in the nebula itself. The consistent, perfect, straight lines, of each star are jarring in the image.
- deanCommie 4y ago
  to be clear - i realize these are for science. they shouldn't be edited for scientists. but we should edit them :)
micromacrofoot 4y ago
Also, I recall reading that those stars are so bright because they're within our galaxy... so they're the foreground really

charxyz 4y ago

Is there an easy way to just scroll through the images?

Tagbert 4y ago
Try this https://webbtelescope.org/resource-gallery/images https://webbtelescope.org/resource-gallery/images
advantager 4y ago
https://webbtelescope.org/news/first-images/gallery https://webbtelescope.org/news/first-images/gallery
eutropia 4y ago
I kinda love this comment. It highlights the absurd dichotomy between what "experts" see and what "lay people" see when they look at the same thing. Parent just wants to see some cool images from Earth's latest and greatest space telescope, preferably in a convenient way. Astrophysicists from NASA, ESA, et al. are hanging off the data and details from every last photon collected - each one having traveled billions of years from their origin deep in the past of our universe. With every point of light in the images, the instruments on Webb and associated computer analysis here on earth analyze each facet of the spectra, inferring the chemical composition of galaxies we may have never even seen before as a species - calculating how much spacetime expanded in the long and lonely journey of those photons hurtling through our universe for billions of years, path bent by warping gravity fields, colliding and remitting from galactic dust to finally arrive at a superchilled mirror segment more than a million miles from earth. But hey, can we just get a scrollable feed of these in a web-optimized image format? [ edit: I guess it wasn't clear -- I genuinely love the question. I'm not being sarcastic. YES obviously people want to look at the images and get excited from press release - YES obviously scientists are using a different data stream and not the press release site. What's really cool is that the same origin (12.5 hours of observing a tiny spec of sky) can be used for both. And genuinely the absurd dichotomy is funny, and cool. I guess there's so much sneering elitism on HN that it's easy to get lumped into the same boat. ]
- 4y ago

leeoniya 4y ago

the Southern Ring Nebula (MIRI Image) is bizarrely very low res? https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/033/01G70C5F6Z698YC9E1DEBA3WET https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/033/01G...

fumblebee 4y ago
Wow you're right, huge difference in the sizes of the "full res" images: > MIRI: Full Res, 1306 X 1133, TIF (1.78 MB) [1] > NIR Cam: Full Res, 4833 X 4501, TIF (24.06 MB) [2] Maybe it's a mistake, they suggest it should offer an "incredible amount of detail": This Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image also offers an _incredible amount of detail_, including a cache of distant galaxies in the background. [1] https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/033/01G70C5F6Z698YC9E1DEBA3WET https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/033/01G... [2] https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/033/01G70BGTSYBHS69T7K3N3ASSEB https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/033/01G...
- TremendousJudge 4y ago
  Well, it's incredible in the sense that I can't believe it
- DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
  MIRI works at longer wavelengths than NIRCam, so its angular resolution is lower (longer wavelengths mean more diffraction). It also has a smaller field of view. Those two factors mean that it has fewer pixels per image.
jacquesm 4y ago
It's the effect of the wavelength of far infrared light being quite a bit longer. Think of a reduction to extremes: if you have a sensor that is a centimeter square and you're trying to 'catch' a wave that is a meter long there is a fair chance the sensor will be bypassed entirely, but if you are trying to catch millimeter waves your sensor will be easily able to capture the photons. The most practical example of this effect is the size of radio antennae, they get longer as the wavelength gets longer.

jonplackett 4y ago

It would be great if they did a before and after shot. Like, here’s what we could see at this point in space before. Now we can see… THIS!

deelowe 4y ago
https://petapixel.com/2022/07/11/comparing-hubble-to-james-webb-the-difference-in-detail-is-astounding/ https://petapixel.com/2022/07/11/comparing-hubble-to-james-w...
- capableweb 4y ago
  Yeah, that's not very good implementation. PetaPixel usually have good content, but using a GIF to compare these two images? Come on! You can see the compression artifacts very easily.
  - yreg 4y ago
    How about this one, by a user from here? https://blog.wolfd.me/hubble-jwst/ https://blog.wolfd.me/hubble-jwst/
    - boriskourt 4y ago
      This is a great way to show all the new distant details. Amazing to think that so many of the artifacts in Hubble's total darkness are galaxies upon galaxies.
  - deelowe 4y ago
    This was also recently posted on reddit: https://johnedchristensen.github.io/WebbCompare/ https://johnedchristensen.github.io/WebbCompare/
    - jonplackett 4y ago
      Was J J Abrahams involved in Webb, because it really seems to produce nice lens flair

crhulls 4y ago

Here is a Hubble side by side of the deep field for comparison https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10159217085846758&set=gm.10160069710501170&type=3&mibextid=wxGVb6 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10159217085846758&se...

throwaway5752 4y ago
My understanding is that it is also 12-13 hours of exposure for the Webb image vs weeks for Hubble.
- pavon 4y ago
  That is incorrect. The famous Hubble Ultra Deep Field image[1] took 11.3 days of imaging spread over four months (because of high demand to use Hubble). However, that is a different part of the sky. The Hubble image shown here was taken as part of RELICS[2], a survey of images to find good candidates for JWST to image, and was only exposed for 1.7 hours (5 orbits at ~20 minutes each), compared to JWST's exposure time of 12.5 hours. So comparisons between between Hubble and JWST for that particular shot are not fair to Hubble. [1]https://esahubble.org/images/heic0611b/ https://esahubble.org/images/heic0611b/ [2]https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/relics/ https://archive.stsci.edu/prepds/relics/
kzrdude 4y ago
Right and it's slightly rotated, 20-30 degrees (guess). Just for others that try to line them up
quaintdev 4y ago
A GIF comparing both Hubble and JWST https://i.redd.it/9uyhwijeo0b91.gif https://i.redd.it/9uyhwijeo0b91.gif
- wolfd 4y ago
  I made this page (posted in another thread yesterday) because I was rather underwhelmed by the .gif. I think the page shows in much better detail the difference between the telescopes' capabilities. https://blog.wolfd.me/hubble-jwst/ https://blog.wolfd.me/hubble-jwst/ (If you're on mobile, you should be able to zoom in and still use the slider)

Shadonototra 4y ago

This website is one of the worst i ever seen Low res pictures on announcement day fire this web dev

guerrilla 4y ago
Seriously, very frustrating and almost anxiety-provoking.
- drewcon 4y ago
  Hi res downloads are available on the left side rail.
Hikikomori 4y ago
> Full Res, 14575 X 8441, TIF (136.99 MB) If this is low res then what is high res?

quickthrower2 4y ago

Nice night to get insomnia!

silentsea90 4y ago

Way to brighten my day with awe and wonder, way to ruin my day with existential dread about our place in the universe.

sho_hn 4y ago
Existential dread pro-tip: The Wikipedia page on "Ultimate fate of the universe" is a fantastic way to compell the question of why anything ultimately matters. Coming up with personal answers to this is the ultimate character resolve exercise!
- yreg 4y ago
  I found Kurzgesagt's video on Optimistic Nihilism helpful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14
  - Agamus 4y ago
    Awesome link, thank you. Nietzsche's career was an exercise in creating and promoting the concept of 'creative nihilism' as an alternative to existential pessimism, which works for me!
    - arvinsim 4y ago
      Also shown in this XKCD[1] [1] https://xkcd.com/167/ https://xkcd.com/167/
- idiotsecant 4y ago
  Nothing matters. You live for a while and then you die, but it sure can be a cool trip getting there!
  - silvi9 4y ago
    You think nothing matters? How can you be so sure?

alberth 4y ago

Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t most astronomy photos colorized (and not actually such vivid colors in real life).

bognition 4y ago
Yes. The photon collectors on JWT detect infra red which is not visible to humans.
banana_giraffe 4y ago
Yes. Or rather, it's a color palette mapping whatever range of the EM spectrum the image is gathered with to something we humans can see. And yes, sometimes the mapping is done to make things look nice.
jacquesm 4y ago
Absolutely, these objects would be completely invisible when using visible light so it is all false color, just like a FLIR would show you an image of the infra red light emitted by an object by shifting it to a spectrum that you can directly perceive.
deanCommie 4y ago
What is real life? What are vivid colors? All electromagnetic radiation is the same. In the sense that every proton/neutron is the same. But adding a few more protons/neutrons creates an entirely new element, with entirely new chemical properties. From something simple come incredibly new powerful behaviours. So just as Iron is massively different from Plutonium, Microwaves are massively different from Gamma rays. What we call "colors", or "visible light" is not particularly special, except to us, and our specific human biology. It feels more real because it's visible to us, but it's not on the grand scale of the universe. What we're observing through these telescopes isn't a dog chasing a ball. We're seeing stuff billions of light years away, millions of light years in size, billions of years ago. Passing by trillions of other stars and planets on the way. These objects are emitting a gargantuan amount of information. Why should we only present the information that happens to be in the same subset as what our primitive primate vision cones can process? So, no, if you were to teleport to the nebula/galaxy that we're showing images for, it wouldn't look exactly like that to your human eyes. Instead, what you're seeing is what a god with perfect vision of the universe would see. You're seeing the universe for what it is, not just the part of it that is presented to humans.

anewpersonality 4y ago

Dumb question. Why can’t we focus on a single exoplanet, look for mountains, grass, buildings? Why am I so stupid but isn’t this the obvious thing to do?

whatshisface 4y ago
There aren't telescopes big enough to do that.
- anewpersonality 4y ago
  - capableweb 4y ago
    > Seeing a bunch of pretty nebulae with artificial colorimg is no longer inspiring, it looks like it could have come out of DALL-E Yeah, that's totally how science works! You can't confirm/reject any theories based on pictures that a AI generates, but I guess you'll tell me that "sure we can" with some more hyperbole.
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    If you're not inspired by these images and the accompanying detail on why they are being taken (especially the exoplanet spectroscopic surveys) then you just aren't thinking hard enough about them.
ceejayoz 4y ago
We can, and do. They're so far away that even our largest telescopes see only a few pixels. Examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HR_8799_Orbiting_Exoplanets.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HR_8799_Orbiting_Exoplane... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beta_Pictoris_b_in_Motion.webm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Beta_Pictoris_b_in_Motion... When Hubble looked at Pluto, it was a low-detail blur ("The Hubble raw images are a few pixels wide"), and that's within our solar system. https://esahubble.org/images/opo1006h/ https://esahubble.org/images/opo1006h/ Remember, the first exoplanet was detected in 1992, and not by imaging; prior to that we didn't even know if they existed at all. JWST's planning started in 1996.

sk8terboi 4y ago

323 4y ago

I am confused because I thought it was an infrared telescope? Are these images as received, or are they frequency shifted post processed into the visible range?

whimsicalism 4y ago
Almost all images are frequency shifted, often just to what makes things look cool. Still makes it cool IMO!
dougmwne 4y ago
Yes, they are frequency shifted. Many telescope images are in false color. I can understand that we are interested in visible light since that’s most within our experience, but the human eye was not evolved for the astronomical and universal so we need some help. Frequency shifting is a tool just like a lens.
airstrike 4y ago
Did you expect 100% black jpgs all around?
clint 4y ago
Humans cannot see infrared light
- astrange 4y ago
  You can feel it if it's transmitted as heat rays.
willis936 4y ago
As others have said: there is frequency shifting done. However, it is important to know that distant galaxies are red shifted making the visible spectrum be in IR. In the case of JWST the frequency shifted images may be close to the non-redshifted visible spectrum.
layer8 4y ago
It’s just your monitor doesn’t support infrared color space and therefore shows the wrong colors. ;)

kryptn 4y ago

I've seen this comparison floating around for the deep field. https://imgsli.com/MTE2Mjc3 https://imgsli.com/MTE2Mjc3

slfnflctd 4y ago

The exoplanet analysis is what I'm most intrigued by. They're getting much more data than in the past on these. Of course they went for an easy gas giant target first (it has lots of water, which is great), but those Earth-like planets in the Goldilocks zone are gonna be some of the most exciting stuff that comes out of this. Looking forward to it.

saiya-jin 4y ago
1150 light years away! Imagine how much more details can be detected for stuff within 50 light years. Really, they should be already building 2nd James Webb. I am sure even 10 of them would get 100% utilization for their whole lifetime. I can only imagine what kind of needless political game is happening around prioritization of time slots for it. Or start working on next-gen, bigger, more resilient etc. It costs peanuts compared to any significant CERN upgrade and we have so much room to progress in astronomy (aka understanding our home, this universe) just by getting more data and resolution.
- jacquesm 4y ago
  I fear there won't be any more JWSTs at all. People are already bitching about how much it cost and that all it does is make pretty pictures right here in this thread and there were many times that it came within a hair of having its budget slashed. Super happy we have one JWST, and I hope fervently that it will outlast its original mission by a large fraction, every sign right now points in that direction.
  - coldpie 4y ago
    > People are already bitching about how much it cost I like to point out that Microsoft could have paid for seven JWSTs (development costs and all) with what they paid for one Activision.
    - radicaldreamer 4y ago
      Now imagine the funding for all the spy satellite programs over the past few decades...

toomuchtodo 4y ago

Was worth every penny.

chaps 4y ago

Direct links -- Stephan's Quintet (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Image): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DB1FHPMJCCY59CQGZC1YJQ.png Southern Ring Nebula (NIRCam and MIRI Images Side by Side): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R28V7S4AXDN8NG5QCPGE3.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G79R28V7S4AXDN8NG5QCPGE3.png “Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula (NIRCam Image): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7ETPF7DVBJAC42JR5N6EQRH.png Webb's First Deep Field (NIRCam Image): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DDBW5NNXTJV8PGHB0465QP.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7DDBW5NNXTJV8PGHB0465QP.png Exoplanet WASP-96 b (NIRISS Transmission Spectrum): https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7NBXDHYYSVBP2M476PRGG3A.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7NBXDHYYSVBP2M476PRGG3A.png

rootusrootus 4y ago
Thanks for the direct links! > Webb's First Deep Field (NIRCam Image) Is this image distorted in any way at all? It feels like the galaxies are somehow oriented around a center spot. Not all of them, but enough to give the image a distorted feeling. Probably it's just my mind pattern matching against something that doesn't really exist.
- palmtree3000 4y ago
  Gravitational lensing. From the description[0]: Other features include the prominent arcs in this field. The powerful gravitational field of a galaxy cluster can bend the light rays from more distant galaxies behind it, just as a magnifying glass bends and warps images. Stars are also captured with prominent diffraction spikes, as they appear brighter at shorter wavelengths. [0] https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2022/news-2022-035?Collection=First%20Images https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2022/news-2...
  - rootusrootus 4y ago
    Ah, that makes perfect sense. I guess I should have RTFM rather than just gawk at the pictures. Thanks for the ELI5!

dangerwill 4y ago

whiteboardr 4y ago

Watching the livestream i was more than surprised, that color correction actually happens in Photoshop. Also, there seem to be multiple layer-masks involved for specific regions and objects. I get that you can shift and composite color, based on hue, apply filters etc, but: Photoshop? Curious if anyone can explain, that what we see is actual science or some touched up version of objects in our universe. p.s.: What struck me the most is the absence of noise, especially for the deep field photo. Hubble took many exposures over weeks, which normally would allow for reliable reduction of noise, webb took some shots over the course of hours and there’s hardly any noise to see. Weirdest part is seeing them just “healing brushing” away some dots - how is the decision process on altering images like that? (edit for typos)

roywiggins 4y ago
Webb's primary camera is infrared, so there is by necessity a choice to be made with how to present the data for humans who can't see in infrared.
- whiteboardr 4y ago
  I am aware. (And have been eagerly waiting for this moment for ages) It just seems “unscientific” to just use Photoshop and above all curious about the set of rules and algorithms, that enables them to decide which hue to pick for which region, levels, etc.
  - DiogenesKynikos 4y ago
    Any real science will be done on the raw images, not on the color composites released for the public. These color composite images really show off how awesome JWST is. They're meant for the public to enjoy (astronomers enjoy them too).
  - vishnugupta 4y ago
    The person seen photoshopping very briefly talked about how he picks different colours for different region/light-frequency. But yes, more details will definitely be helpful. Also I guess they could open-source the untouched photos for other artists and photoshop experts to play around?

matesz 4y ago

Not to spoil anything, but anybody else here finding these results quite underwelming?

Jorchime 4y ago
Hubbles pictures were probably new to you, so in a sense this is "just" an iteration. I think you just had the perspective/expectation that this will be new as well. Maybe a bit much for the very first public results of a scientific experiment.
ceejayoz 4y ago
I think that'll depend how much you read. If you look only at the picture, it's gonna be hard to tell versus, say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field#/media/File:HubbleDeepField.800px.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble_Deep_Field#/media/File:... for the deep-field shot or https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2007/16/2099-Image.html https://hubblesite.org/contents/media/images/2007/16/2099-Im... for the Carina Nebula shot. If you read the details, the fact that JWST can resolve much dimmer light sources much more quickly than Hubble ever had a hope of should be fairly compelling from a "how much science can we do?" standpoint.
willis936 4y ago
A mass spec of a galaxy 13.1 Bn years ago is pretty amazing and informs new answers to the biggest questions of the universe. None of these images really stretch the legs of the instrument either. A hot jupiter is not an interesting exoplanet. It's a taste.
twojacobtwo 4y ago
I'm super curious how you could find these underwhelming. My mind is blown just scrolling across each of the images. What exactly were you expecting from them?
- matesz 4y ago
  I agree, not only pictures are amazing, but the idea that is actually works, just crazy. I ment more in the context of images taken by Hubble telescope - you know, all the hype. 25 years of work, 40mln hours worked, billions spent. Pictures are better than hubbles, but not by orders of magnitude, which is what I expected. That's why underwhelming.

uhtred 4y ago

So if they point this thing at an exoplanet and it has advanced life will we see a picture much the same as when we see a photo of earth taken from the space station? i.e. city lights etc?

boriskourt 4y ago
Already answered in sibling: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32072067 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32072067

oittaa 4y ago

Unfortunately the NASA stream online was a disaster. Choppy video and it seemed like nobody had prepared anything. Also 720p in 2022... Don't get me wrong, the images are amazing, but when small startups like Rocket Lab can have uninterrupted streams all the way to the orbit, but NASA stream from a studio looks more amateurish than your average 13-year-old Fortnite player on Twitch, it leaves a pretty bad impression.

the_cat_kittles 4y ago
the classic "hacker news landing page critique" applied to nasa, love it
VerminOctopus1 4y ago
I think NASA’s funding generally goes towards doing science rather than optimizing their Fortnite streams
dan_quixote 4y ago
I'm not sure if NASA or the White House directed that stream. I've seen much better-organized streams from NASA. It wasn't just technically flawed. It was late, abrupt, disjointed and the talking points appeared to be delivered by people that had little knowledge in the matter. I can't believe I saw that level of disorganization from our highest executive office.
ehsankia 4y ago
Seriously it was such a mess. Lag aside, they had MULTIPLE cases of either someone's mic not being on, or someone with a hot mic after they were done whispering over the stream. Almost every single transition to scientists in other cities failed. This is really unfortunate because they hyped up this event big time. They announced it two weeks in advance, had a countdown, even had scientists do "reaction" videos to seeing the photos for the first time... People often underestimate how insanely hard it is to put something like this together, but I'm surprised NASA did, It's not like it's the first time NASA does a livecast.

lbrito 4y ago

I remember reading something in the lines of: we know this nebula to be composed of gasses X and Y, which have colors A and B. As a layman it was unclear to me if this statement means they are applying a color palette to a monochrome image(s) using some educated guesses or something else. Is infrared the only (or the most convenient, most useful etc) spectrum visible given the great distance? If we could get close enough, I suppose we would see things in clearer visible light. Without any enhancements, long exposures etc, would they be anywhere as colorful as the nebula images? Would they be visible to us at all, or are the emissions too weak even up close to make any impression to our eyes?

zanecodes 4y ago
(Disclaimer: I am not an astronomer) As you may be aware, all digital images are composed of a color palette applied to monochrome images, it just so happens that we usually pick a color palette of red, green, and blue, which ideally correspond as closely as possible to the three wavelengths of light to which the imaging sensors in our cameras (and also our eyes) are sensitive, thus reproducing what our eyes would see in person. In the case of JWST, mid- and far-infrared sensors were chosen for several reasons, the first being that due to the accelerating expansion of the universe, light from further away (equivalently, light from further back in time) has been stretched out along its path of travel, causing its wavelength to be shifted further into the infrared spectrum. Another possible reason is that infrared wavelengths penetrate the interstellar dust clouds much better than visible or ultraviolet light, allowing us to see stars and galaxies that were previously hidden by dust. Since JWST captures wavelengths of light that we can't see, we have to apply some sort of visible-light palette to the monochrome images it sends back. At the bottom of this image, you can see which wavelengths were mapped to which visible-light colors: https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7N9A6934R1WRWBJY1ZXB98B.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7N9A6934R1WRWBJY1ZXB98B.png One key aspect of this mapping is that the order of wavelengths has been preserved; shorter IR wavelengths are colored blue while longer ones are colored red. It's likely that this mapping is non-linear though, so the relative distances between IR wavelengths are not the same as the distances between the hues in the image, and this mapping was chosen to maximize the visible detail in the resulting image, as well as to highlight scientifically relevant information such as dust clouds and areas of star formation, so it's not totally arbitrary. In addition, the dynamic range of JWST is much much larger than the pixels in any display. The raw data values probably range from 0 to some hundreds of thousands, while your display's pixel brightness can only go from 0 to 255 (or maybe 1023, if you have a 10-bit HDR display). While we could simply map the maximum pixel value to 255 and compress everything else in between, this would lose nearly all of the detail present in the darker regions of the images, compressing them to 0. Instead, a non-linear brightness mapping is applied, to best represent all the information present in darker regions without blowing out the bright stars and galaxies. So to answer your questions, the colors shown in the images are not what you would see in person. Without any enhancements you probably wouldn't be able to see much if any of the dust clouds, and many of the redder galaxies would not be visible to you at all, while all the rest would be different hues than the ones shown (probably mostly whites, yellows, and reds).

datadata 4y ago

When I was observing the 2017 total solar eclipse, my attention was interrupted for a few seconds by someone who was driving a car. Their headlights turned on as they kept driving, not stopping for a minute to see something that for a given place on earth happens once every four centuries. The few people dismissing this reminded me of that experience.

sixstringtheory 4y ago
I know people who care greatly about the JWST but will go around the company slack belittling people for wishing happy new year, wielding a cosmic cudgel of unimportance on the day. But everything humans find important are only that due to human and sociological constructs, whether calendrical or cosmological. Nothing matters, except what matters to you. The unthinking matter of nature is utterly indifferent (as far as we know or think). – someone who drove a long, long way to see the same solar eclipse, no regrets!
InCityDreams 4y ago
...may have been a doctor on a particularly important call.

aruanavekar 4y ago

Great pictures https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/07/12/1111002820/webb-telescope-images-nasa https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/07/12/11110028...

FailMore 4y ago

THIS IS SOOOO AWESOME. So happy to be alive with this happening!

samstave 4y ago

Need to get new Phil Mosbey prints of this on hex prints. (Phil mosbey is the astro-photographer who made the hex print of JWT which nasa bought and placed in lobby (if you havent seen his space calandar, its amazing.) he grew up with my younger brother, and I have some art/prints in my house of his. - Although, I agree with some other folks ; Why cant we point Hubble or JWT at the planets in our solar system, or the closest objects to us. The deep-field view of both hubble and JWT are wonderful, but whats the diff on pointing it to closer objects. -- Further, /noStupidQuestions: Why at out level of tech and the fact that all of these projects are funded by tax money (as a portion) can we not have live streaming (even if high latency) from all such projects? What is the national security preventing us from having a space (or any other) telescope funded by public taxes from having the ability to see what it sees, even if with reasonable delay... Wouldn't it be interesting to bounty analysis from such ; Basically, allow for arm-chair amateur space-folks-ham-radio-style to do submit findings for bounties on discoveries?

smudgy 4y ago

I saw it and I started crying, it's beautiful beyond description and belief.

threads2 4y ago
hahaha thanks for the laugh

skilled 4y ago

I hope someone from NASA will read this or perhaps someone can forward this message, but all we want (mere mortal humans) is quick access to the direct links to the highest resolution images. From what I can tell it takes anywhere from 5 (if you know what you're doing) to 10 clicks (once you understand the UI) to find all the links for a -singular- image. Thanks nonetheless.

dzikimarian 4y ago
This is pretty easy option https://webbtelescope.org/news/news-releases?Collection=First%20Images https://webbtelescope.org/news/news-releases?Collection=Firs... 1. Pick subject 2. Pick image which interests you (bottom) 3. Pick resolution you need (left sidebar)

taftster 4y ago

So, am I to get this right? The universe, it's big. Like really big?

SapporoChris 4y ago
Not only is the universe big, really big. Unimaginably big. You are also by comparison, small, unimaginably small. Infinitesimally small. Be that as it may, do the best you can. Less flippantly, the number of galaxies in the images is just mind boggling. I'm looking forward to seeing 3d explorable map of the galaxies someday. I know it will happen if it hasn't already.
hulahoof 4y ago
I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to space.

tpae 4y ago

What is that brightest light?

divbzero 4y ago

Somewhere in one of those distant galaxies, a modestly advanced life form has deployed their first infrared telescope into orbit around their star system and captured a deep field image that happens to contain our Milky Way. Discussions in their hive brain include speculation on life existing beyond their star system.

bdefore 4y ago

All the additional detail in the nebulae shots in particular! What's resonating with me today: As a web dev, I cannot imagine the feeling of so much dedication and effort from so many people finally unfolding to release after 30 years. One moonshot longer than full careers. Some of those responsible (hundreds? thousands?) retired or no longer with us. What a sacrifice, and what an achievement.

dang 4y ago

Recent and related: James Webb Telescope First Images – Livestream - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32070531 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32070531 - July 2022 (8 comments) Deepest infrared image of universe - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32062849 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32062849 - July 2022 (334 comments) James Webb Space Telescope White House Briefing - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32062139 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32062139 - July 2022 (91 comments)

mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago

Disclaimer: IANA scientist of any sort, just a huge nerd. I've been interested in astronomy since I learned to read, and JWST has been planned for most of my life(all but 2 years if you count all explorations of ideas for a post-hubble telescope since about 95). I've been waiting for this my whole life, so this feels like a strangely personal event to me even though I had nothing to do with it myself. It's so hard to even put into words the tremendousness of this technological and scientific achievement, so I won't try. Anyway, enough sap. I'm super stoked that they've already started taking spectra of exoplanets. This one was sort of an "easier" one but the detail was unprecedented as with all the other observations. I can't wait to see some results on some of these smaller rocky planets in their star's "goldilocks zone". These are the planets that have simply been out of reach until now, and are the most interesting in terms of searching for signs of life.

smm11 4y ago

This is the point in Contact when the crazy religious guy pushes the button.

peanut_worm 4y ago

Other than the big bright ones (which I guess are nearby stars) are all these things different galaxies?

perlgeek 4y ago
Yes. This was an image of a relatively "empty" portion of sky (no stars nearby), so anything you can see has to be pretty bright by itself, which means galaxy, not star.
- pqdbr 4y ago
  Does that also include the very tiny little dots? I have the same question as OP, and I thought the tiny dots were single stars, and the little bigger ones (brighter) were galaxies.

k4ch0w 4y ago

I’m super proud of all our scientists for this work. It’s honestly one of the most astounding photos I’ve ever looked at.

turdnagel 4y ago

This kind of stuff is really awe-inspiring. I have a couple of questions for anyone who is knowledgeable on the subject: 1. Looking at the light from the tiny red-shifted galaxies that are ~13 billion years old... would the Milky Way appear the same to an observer ~13 billion ly from us? 2. What is the cause of the star pointed artifacts (specifically, having 6 major "points") for particularly bright objects? If you zoom in closely on any one of the points, you can almost make out a hex grid, as if the shape of the telescope's mirrors is the cause. Is that correct?

ip26 4y ago
The points are caused by the support arms of the secondary mirror.
opwieurposiu 4y ago
1. Yes pretty much. 2. Yes the artifact shape is related to the mirror shape, and the support arms which block some light. this is called a Diffraction spike. There are a bunch of fake web telescope image videos on YouTube with 4pointed diffraction spikes so you can tell they are taken from a different telescope. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike
12ian34 4y ago
on 1., I'm not sure but I'd guess so, yes. on 2., you are seeing Diffraction Spikes[0] which are artefacts of the telescope's design. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction_spike

AlexFielder 4y ago

Serious question: How do I explain this to my nine year old?

sbierwagen 4y ago
Explain what? There's a telescope in space?
87tau 4y ago
Unsure what you want to explain or what your nine year old already knows, but generally I would start by explaining to him/her/them that these are pictures of very far away and enormous objects taken from a telescope that is located further away than the moon. The telescope takes pictures in a different frequency band, like an infrared camera. These pictures are then color mapped to blue, green yellow and other colors that you normally see because just black and white image are boring to look at.

frebord 4y ago

Is there any attempt or is it even possible to correct for the distortion caused by the gravitational lensing?

NeutralForest 4y ago

Absolutely breathtaking that such a tiny window inside the universe would cover so much.

adonovan 4y ago
It always blows my mind that when you look at the night sky, aside from 7 planets and only 2 galaxies, every point of light you see is a star; but when these space telescopes point at a patch of nothingness, we see a starry night where every point of light is a (freaking) galaxy.

mparnisari 4y ago

I have no idea what i'm looking at or how much effort this took but it looks gorgeous and it's my new desktop background.

amelius 4y ago

I'd like to see some shots of Earth too.

yaya69 4y ago

WebbWeaver 4y ago

I really appreciate the work of the US Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories for creating HITRAN. HITRAN is a molecular spectroscopic database used to look molecules in gas and atmosphere. They are the standard archive for transmission and radiance calculations. Without their groundwork we would not be as good at understanding planetary atmospheres. https://hitran.org/ https://hitran.org/ free after registration https://hitran.org/media/refs/HITRAN-2020.pdf https://hitran.org/media/refs/HITRAN-2020.pdf HAPI (programming interface manual) https://hitran.org/static/hapi/hapi_manual.pdf https://hitran.org/static/hapi/hapi_manual.pdf Youtube tutorials https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiKuigtFahk&list=PLqOG3cBizTUFQw5lwpkCpQFCVuxHTZgrT https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiKuigtFahk&list=PLqOG3cBizT... It is very easy to use and might help to understand WASP-96 b transmission spectrum. https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7NBXDHYYSVBP2M476PRGG3A.png https://stsci-opo.org/STScI-01G7NBXDHYYSVBP2M476PRGG3A.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_absorption_by_water https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_absorption_by_...

WebbWeaver 4y ago
Aww yiss new images! Extremely generous analysis and 3d orientation. https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G7F6AWJNTF1G0ZWP5ESGSFXF https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G... https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G7FJFCNKGARKRFM13FWQ881E https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G... https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/035/01G7HRYVGM1TKW556NVJ1BHPDZ?page=2&filterUUID=91dfa083-c258-4f9f-bef1-8f40c26f4c97 https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/035/01G... https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G7FG9P3BVP4CPK1QHX0RG5XN https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/034/01G...

tempaccount2022 4y ago

cool

Dopameaner 4y ago

I didnt realize we had a 3d map of dark matter. Something to be mindful of now. Gathered the summary from the Royal Observatory’s website[1] regarding Hubble's major contributions " - Helped pin down the age for the universe now known to be 13.8 billion years, roughly three times the age of Earth. - Discovered two moons of Pluto, Nix and Hydra. - Helped determine the rate at which the universe is expanding. - Discovered that nearly every major galaxy is anchored by a black hole at the centre. - Created a 3-D map of dark matter."

grendelt 4y ago

looks like they changed the lensflare from 4 points to 6... a 50% increase!

Barrera 4y ago

It's easy to lose sight of this in the amazing images: > In a dream come true for exoplaneteers, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has demonstrated its unprecedented ability to analyze the atmosphere of a planet more than 1,000 light-years away. With the combined forces of its 270-square-foot mirror, precision spectrographs, and sensitive detectors, Webb has – in a single observation – revealed the unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze, and evidence for clouds that were thought not to exist based on prior observations. The transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant WASP-96 b, made using Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph, provides just a glimpse into the brilliant future of exoplanet research with Webb. and later: > WASP-96 b is one of more than 5,000 confirmed exoplanets in the Milky Way. Located roughly 1,150 light-years away in the southern-sky constellation Phoenix, it represents a type of gas giant that has no direct analog in our solar system. With a mass less than half that of Jupiter and a diameter 1.2 times greater, WASP-96 b is much puffier than any planet orbiting our Sun. And with a temperature greater than 1000°F, it is significantly hotter. WASP-96 b orbits extremely close to its Sun-like star, just one-ninth of the distance between Mercury and the Sun, completing one circuit every 3½ Earth-days.

pbj1968 4y ago

Sawdust and farts. Nobody leaves this planet alive.

imchillyb 4y ago

“Space is big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.” -D.A....R.I.P.

biggyjump 4y ago

<https://www.stsci.edu/files/live/sites/www/files/home/jwst/documentation/_documents/jwst-science-performance-report.pdf https://www.stsci.edu/files/live/sites/www/files/home/jwst/d...> The science performance report of JWST is a fascinating read. Some of the highlights that sent me down a rabbit-hole - On Predicted lifetime of consumables - Before launch, JWST was required to carry propellant for at least 10.5 years of mission lifetime. Now that JWST is in orbit around L2, it is clear that the remaining propellant will last for more than 20 years of mission lifetime. - On Orbit - Orbit around L2 is maintained through regular station-keeping burns, which are scheduled every three weeks - On observatory lifetime - At present, the largest source of uncertainty is long term effects of micrometeoroid impacts that slowly degrade the primary mirror. - On Other spacecraft performance - JWST is now generating 1.5 kW to match the power load, with a capability of > 2 kW - On Fault management - Of the 344 single point failures at launch, almost all of them related to deployments, only 49 remain; these are common to most science missions (for example, only one set of propellant tanks, only one high gain antenna) The section on "Pointing and guiding" which mentions how complex sub-systems interact to achieve "line-of-sight stabilization" and how its not possible to test those systems together in an end-to-end fashion on the ground is interesting.

alionaguseva 4y ago

Hey! How about 1.4 Gigapixel image of the galaxy? The new photos are stunning. Let's Enhance's AI made them super high res for you to enjoy the clearest view of the Universe. Download: 80MP/140MB https://drive.google.com/file/d/150VhXVEfYXmr70LrrZxQ50pU0u5H9VXV/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/150VhXVEfYXmr70LrrZxQ50pU0u5... 1.4GP/2.5GB (note: not every image viewer can handle a file this big) https://drive.google.com/file/d/14x__QDUmrIvLnlxoSOksu3mgpeXj3mjQ/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/14x__QDUmrIvLnlxoSOksu3mgpeX...