The James Webb Space Telescope began releasing a new wave of cosmic images on Tuesday, heralding a new era of astronomy.
"Every image is a new discovery," said NASA administrator Bill Nelson. "Each will give humanity a view of the universe that we've never seen before."
On Monday, Webb revealed the clearest image to date of the early universe, going back 13 billion years.
This image released by NASA on Tuesday is a composit of the information captured by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) showing a landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars which is the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula.
One new image on Tuesday shown water vapor in the atmosphere of a faraway gas planet. The spectroscopy -- an analysis of light that reveals detailed information -- was of planet WASP-96 b, which was discovered in 2014.
Nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth, WASP-96 b is about half the mass of Jupiter and zips around its star in just 3.4 days.
"We've seen the effect of what happens when a planet and its atmosphere passes in front of the star, and the star light filters through the atmosphere, and you can break that down into wavelengths of light," said NASA's Knicole Colon.
"So you're actually seeing bumps and wiggles that indicate the presence of water vapor in the atmosphere of the planet."
This image released by NASA on Tuesday from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows a landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars which is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula.
Other targets that will be released include Carina Nebula, a stellar nursery, famous for its towering pillars that include "Mystic Mountain," a three-light-year-tall cosmic pinnacle captured in an iconic image by Hubble.
One stunning shot released by the White House on Monday was overflowing with thousands of galaxies and features some of the faintest objects observed.
Known as Webb's First Deep Field, it shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, which acts as a gravitational lens, bending light from more distant galaxies behind it towards the observatory, in a cosmic magnification effect.
A group of five galaxies that appear close to each other in the sky: two in the middle, one toward the top, one to the upper left, and one toward the bottom are seen in a mosaic or composite of near and mid-infrared data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary apparatus designed to peer through the cosmos to the dawn of the universe and released on Tuesday.
Launched in December 2021 from French Guiana on an Ariane 5 rocket, Webb is orbiting the Sun at a distance of a million miles (1.6 million kilometres) from Earth, in a region of space called the second Lagrange point.
Here, it remains in a fixed position relative to the Earth and Sun, with minimal fuel required for course corrections.
A wonder of engineering, the total project cost is estimated at US$10 billion, making it one of the most expensive scientific platforms ever built, comparable to the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
Webb's primary mirror is over 21 feet (6.5 metres) wide and is made up of 18 gold-coated mirror segments. Like a camera held in one's hand, the structure must remain as stable as possible to achieve the best shots.
An observation of a planetary nebula from the NIRCam instrument of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary apparatus designed to peer through the cosmos to the dawn of the universe and released on Tuesday.
After the first images, astronomers around the globe will get shares of time on the telescope, with projects selected competitively through a process in which applicants and selectors do not know each other's identities, to minimise bias.
Thanks to an efficient launch, NASA estimates Webb has enough propellant for a 20-year life, as it works in concert with the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes to answer fundamental questions about the cosmos.
An observation of a planetary nebula from the MIRI instrument in the mid-infrared from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary apparatus designed to peer through the cosmos to the dawn of the universe and released on Tuesday.
Two side-by-side deep field images from the MIRI and NIRCam instruments of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, a revolutionary apparatus designed to peer through the cosmos to the dawn of the universe, show composites made from images of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, known as Webb’s First Deep Field, at Mid-Infrared, left, and Near-Infrared and released on Tuesday.