Why was the first Webb telescope image so crooked, crooked, and weird
In the first image released by NASA from the Webb telescope, some galaxies look like stretched strings of candy. That’s because the universe itself has changed our view of the deep cosmos. Astronomers recently pointed the colossal James Webb Space Telescope at a group of galaxies dubbed SMACS 0723. Most importantly, galaxies are extremely massive objects because they contain hundreds of billions of stars, millions of black holes, and perhaps trillions of planets. The combined mass of these galaxies warps space, like a bowling ball sitting on a mattress. This curved space essentially creates the “lens” we see. So the light from the galaxy behind the galaxy cluster that we (or the Webb telescope) see ends up being distorted. This is an event called “gravitational lensing.” As the Space Telescope Science Institute (which runs the telescope) explains: “It’s like having a camera lens between us and a galaxy more distant.” SEE ALSO: The first stunning cosmic image from the James Webb tel