The James Webb Telescope is a large infrared telescope with an approximately 6.5 meter primary mirror. It was successfully launched on December 25th, 2021 in French Guiana, and will study every phase in the history of our universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System. Alec Weinstock, one of Tauro’s analysts, elaborates on four images taken from the James Webb Telescope. The first image captures a galaxy cluster 4.6 billion light years away which features a gravitational lensing effect which causes stars to warp. The second and largest photo of NASA’s released photos is Stephan’s Quintet which contains 150 million pixels across 1,000 separate image files. It also features a super massive black hole which is 24 million times the mass of our sun and emits 40 billion times the amount of light of our sun. The third image is the Karina Nebula located 7,500 light years away. The image itself is 16 light years wide. What’s interesting about the Nebula is that you can see the stars through the gas. The final image highlights the Southern Ring nebula which is a dying star shedding outer layers over time, eventually becoming a white dwarf. It’s located 2,000 light years away.
