The James Webb Space Telescope opens a new era of space exploration | Canberra Weekly
The inaugural James Webb Space Telescope image has opened a new chapter of cosmic exploration, but astronomers say the observatory’s most important discoveries may be ones they haven’t yet imagined. Distant colliding galaxies, gas-giant exoplanets, and dying star systems were the first celestial subjects to be captured by a billion-dollar observatory, putting their various infrared imaging capabilities on a colorful display and proving that the telescope works as designed. Webb’s gallery of early photographs and spectrographic data, which astronomers liken to a mere “target practice” as they prepare telescopes for operational science, also showcases some of the areas of investigation planned for the future. The competitively selected research agenda includes exploring the evolution of early galaxies, stellar life cycles, the search for habitable planets orbiting distant suns, and the composition of moons in our own outer solar system. But Webb’s most revolutionary find, 100 times more