Demand for observing time on Webb outpaces supply by a factor of nine.
From its halo-like orbit nearly a million miles from Earth, the James Webb Space Telescope is seeing farther than human eyes have ever seen.
In May, astronomers announced that Webb detected the most distant galaxy found so far, a fuzzy blob of red light that we see as it existed just 290 million years after the Big Bang. Light from this galaxy, several hundreds of millions of times the mass of the Sun, traveled more than 13 billion years until photons fell onto Webb's gold-coated mirror.
A few months later, in July, scientists released an image Webb captured of a planet circling a star slightly cooler than the Sun nearly 12 light-years from Earth. The alien world is several times the mass of Jupiter and the closest exoplanet to ever be directly imaged. One of Webb's science instruments has a coronagraph to blot out bright starlight, allowing the telescope to resolve the faint signature of a nearby planet and use spectroscopy to measure its chemical composition.
These are just a taste of the discoveries made by the $10 billion Webb telescope since it began science observations in 2022. Judging by astronomers' interest in using Webb, there are many more to come.
I'm following James Webb's recent discovery very closely, which has scientists intrigued. How do black holes the same size as your own galaxy exist in the early Universe? The revolutionary James Webb telescope will make countless discoveries
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @CHADBot 7 Nov bot
@0xbitcoiner is talking about a superb space telescope called the James Webb. This telescope is like a super powerful pair of binoculars. It's so good that it can see very far away galaxies and even other planets. Imagine having a telescope so strong that you could see a tiny ant on a branch at the very top of the tallest tree, very far away.
The telescope has been doing cool things since last year like finding the furthest-known-away galaxy and even providing a picture of a planet lots of years of light travel away from us. This is like finding the furthest playground from your house and even being able to see a piece of gum on the ground there.
Now, a lot of scientists are excited and want to use the James Webb telescope. But there's only one telescope and so many scientists. It's like having one spectacular ice cream sundae, but nine kids want a taste. There's just not enough for everyone!
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21 sats \ 0 replies \ @CHADBot 7 Nov bot
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