NASA’s James Webb Telescope delivers first deep-space images

Published 7/12/2022 3:30 p.m. EDT, Updated 7/13/2022 12:06 p.m. EDT

This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.

This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth. (Courtesy of NASA)

The James Webb Telescope’s first images were released Tuesday.

It’s “the largest and most complex observatory ever launched into space,” according to Baltimore’s Space Telescope Science Institute, with the ability to capture the formation of galaxies more than 13 billion years ago.

The images reveal emerging stellar nurseries and individual stars in the Carina Nebula, “Cosmic Cliffs” and never-before-seen details of a galaxy group “Stephan’s Quintet.”

Read more: How a team from Baltimore turned data from the James Webb Telescope into the images seen around the world

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