NASA’s James Webb Telescope reveals the beauty of the universe

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is now operational. The latest space-based observatory, a joint effort by NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, has returned the first images of the vast universe.  

One reason why many are fascinated with space is that the universe is beautiful. Who has seen images of stars, nebulae, galaxies, planets and even moons and has not felt awe?

In the past few decades, space-based telescopes have enhanced astronomy, unclouded by Earth’s atmosphere. The Hubble Space Telescope has not only advanced our knowledge of the universe, but our appreciation for its beauty with the images it has returned.

Now, it is the Webb Telescope’s turn to add to the knowledge and reveal the beauty of the universe.

NASA revealed the first image at the White House to President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson. The image was of a galactic cluster, a colorful array whose light had come across over 13 billion years. The image was replete with details about how galaxies formed toward the very beginning of the universe. As spectacular as the image is, it represents only a tiny portion of the night sky.

The next day, NASA revealed four more images taken by the Webb telescope, each more spectacular than the last. They are:

• The Carina Nebula: “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.”
• Stephan’s Quintet: “a visual grouping of five galaxies, is best known for being prominently featured in the holiday classic film, ‘It’s a Wonderful Life.’”
• The Southern Ring Nebula: “The dimmer star at the center of this scene has been sending out rings of gas and dust for thousands of years in all directions.”
• Wasp-96-B: “the distinct signature of water, along with evidence for clouds and haze, in the atmosphere surrounding a hot, puffy gas giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star.”

Later, NASA released JWST images of Jupiter and some of its moons, taken with its near infrared camera. The images proved that the space telescope could show nearby objects within our solar system as well as distant stars and galaxies.

The Webb telescope was 25 years in the making. Its slipping schedule and ballooning costs had caused some to suggest that it was a fiscal black hole. Its launch and deployment was so complex that it was a $10 billion gamble.

The Webb telescope has survived all of the technical, fiscal and political challenges that beset it over the long years of its design and construction. It will spend the next 20 years, at least, ferreting out the secrets of the universe with its infrared and near infrared imaging technology.

From time to time, critics of big science projects like the Webb telescope wonder if the time and resources spent to bring them into being might not be better spent on other priorities, such as solving the social ills of poverty, hunger and environmental degradation. The late Richard Feynman suggested that science has an intrinsic value because the knowledge thus won allows us to make and do things that we would otherwise not be able to.

The critic might respond that, yes, that might be an argument for applied science research, such as an effort to discover cures for diseases or ways to produce more food cheaper. Does that principle apply to astronomy and astrophysics, which might not have any obvious practical applications?

No one can know in advance what practical results of projects like the Webb telescope will be. We cannot know the unknown until we set out to know it.

Besides, as mentioned before, the images being returned by the telescope are beautiful in the same way that a great work of art is. The beauty of the universe, and its ability to inspire, has its own value and is well worth the cost and effort to reveal it.

Mark R. Whittington is the author of space exploration studies “Why is It So Hard to Go Back to the Moon?” as well as “The Moon, Mars and Beyond,” and “Why is America Going Back to the Moon?” He blogs at Curmudgeons Corner.