The Universe's Baby Pictures (Squee!) From The James Webb Space Telescope

Short Wave

NPR

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🗓️ 15 July 2022

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

Earlier this week we got a look at one of the highest-profile scientific photo dumps of all time. The James Webb Space Telescope is the most powerful telescope ever sent into space, and it is producing some of the most detailed, rich, and far-reaching images of the universe we have seen – including the birth of stars, galaxies colliding, and the bending of space-time itself. Today, Host Emily Kwong talks with Short Wave Scientist-in-Residence Regina G. Barber and NPR's Joe Palca about these mind bending new portraits of our universe and our origins.

You can follow Emily on Twitter @EmilyKwong1234 and Regina @ScienceRegina. Email Short Wave at [email protected].

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to Shortwave from NPR.
0:04.4	Hey there nerds.
0:07.6	So this week, Stargazers and Space Watchers were in for a real treat.
0:11.9	My newsfeed and possible yours was interrupted by eye-popping images from the James Webb
0:17.4	Space Telescope, or JWST.
0:19.8	It's the most powerful telescope ever sent into space, costing NASA $10 billion and two
0:26.1	whole decades of work.
0:28.2	And that work is finally starting to pay off, lighting up social media with photos of
0:33.5	a galaxy cluster, a stellar nursery, and a portrait of our early universe just after
0:39.9	the Big Bang, teeming with thousands of baby galaxies.
0:44.7	Basically, this telescope is a time machine.
0:48.3	And to help me fully appreciate what these images mean, there's two people who came
0:52.2	to mind.
0:53.2	I'm Joe Palca, and I'm the Science Correspondent at NPR.
0:57.3	I'm Regina Barber.
0:58.3	I'm the Scientist and Residence at Shortwave.
1:01.1	It's incredible the images that are circulating from this telescope.
1:05.2	And I just want to start off by asking you both, what is the significance of this moment
1:09.4	to you?
1:10.4	It is huge for me, actually.
1:14.5	When I got my PhD a while ago, I used Hubble Space Telescope images, and just the images
1:20.3	we got from the telescope even with all of the trials and struggles.
	...

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