It's an historic image. No really it is. It's a view that collects light from the dawn of time about 13 billion years ago. It's just one tiny piece of the sky. It's on another level in terms of astronomy in my view. It's what it's all about.
This first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.
It's perfectly clear yet mysterious. Full of answers and begetting yet more questions. This is the dream our ancestors had. We have it on view. Redshifted dreams.
