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Rabat – NASA released on Tuesday pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope, showing faraway galaxies as they existed 13 billion years ago. The pictures are the deepest infrared imagings of space ever taken.
The small section of the universe captured by the telescope has been named SMACS 0723, with the pictures revealing light emanating from some of the farthest galaxies.
US President Joe Biden unveiled the pictures and called them “historic.”
“It’s astounding. It’s an historic moment for science and technology, for America and all of humanity,” he added, asserting the pictures provide “a new window into the history of our universe.”
Bill Nelson, administrator of NASA, said future images could go back further in time, revealing elements of the universe as they were 13.5 billion years ago, close to the estimated time when the universe came into being.
The $10 billion telescope uses a sophisticated system of lenses and prisms to detect infrared signals invisible to the human eye. The telescope can “look backwards in time” as light from faraway galaxies takes years to travel to Earth.
In development since the mid-1990s, the telescope was only launched in December, promising to fundamentally change our understanding of the universe.
It has been performing “flawlessly” since its launch, NASA officials have said.
The telescope will also be able to gather information concerning the chemical and atmospheric composition of faraway galaxies and planets, which can help determine if they are suitable for human life.
