<p>Mankind has taken another important step in its exploration of the universe with the imaging of a span of faraway worlds in long lost time by the James Webb space telescope, which peers into time and space like no human eye or machine has done till now. The many horizons it has brought closer, giving fascinating visions of those that lie beyond, are grander in scale and complexity than had even been imagined so far. The space telescope, which is the successor to the Hubble space telescope, is looking at the universe from its solar orbit 1.5 million km away from the earth. US space agency NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency have collaborated on the state-of-the-art infrared telescope for about three decades, spending about $10 billion on it. The stunning deep field images from it were released at the White House and at the NASA spaceflight centre in Maryland, marking one of astronomy’s great moments. </p>.<p>Just starting its estimated 20-year life of exploration, the telescope has already brought home tens of thousands of galaxies, millions of stars heavier and larger than the sun, and the multitudes of planets and moons that move around them in a cosmic play of light and darkness, colours and shapes. It has brought pictures of a much younger universe from 4.6 billion light years away and looked at nurseries of stars rising from primordial dust and their death and dissolution into elements. It has detected blackholes eating up everything around them, bending light and even time. It also flashed tantalisingly, though uncertainly, faint intimations of the presence of water in an exoplanet and pointed to the chances of life stirring at a distance beyond measure. The shifting and dancing galaxies of Stephan’s Quintet, the Southern Ring nebula with a dying star at its heart, alphabet soups of galaxies and gas planets strewn across a space scape of marvels and mysteries -- astronomers have till now seen nothing like this. Eventually, it will give us a glimpse of the very early universe, going back to just 100-250 million years after the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago.</p>.<p>Scientists and astronomers hope to make some sense of these pictures and others that will follow. Webb has given us only a fleeting glimpse of a tiny part of the universe. The world brought to us by the pictures may have vanished millions of years ago. If there was life in those realms, then that may also have evolved or perished. But the spectacular sights of a far moment in the cosmic past, in all their terror and glory, should humble us. They should also push us to stretch the limits of our minds to know what they mean to us. </p>
<p>Mankind has taken another important step in its exploration of the universe with the imaging of a span of faraway worlds in long lost time by the James Webb space telescope, which peers into time and space like no human eye or machine has done till now. The many horizons it has brought closer, giving fascinating visions of those that lie beyond, are grander in scale and complexity than had even been imagined so far. The space telescope, which is the successor to the Hubble space telescope, is looking at the universe from its solar orbit 1.5 million km away from the earth. US space agency NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency have collaborated on the state-of-the-art infrared telescope for about three decades, spending about $10 billion on it. The stunning deep field images from it were released at the White House and at the NASA spaceflight centre in Maryland, marking one of astronomy’s great moments. </p>.<p>Just starting its estimated 20-year life of exploration, the telescope has already brought home tens of thousands of galaxies, millions of stars heavier and larger than the sun, and the multitudes of planets and moons that move around them in a cosmic play of light and darkness, colours and shapes. It has brought pictures of a much younger universe from 4.6 billion light years away and looked at nurseries of stars rising from primordial dust and their death and dissolution into elements. It has detected blackholes eating up everything around them, bending light and even time. It also flashed tantalisingly, though uncertainly, faint intimations of the presence of water in an exoplanet and pointed to the chances of life stirring at a distance beyond measure. The shifting and dancing galaxies of Stephan’s Quintet, the Southern Ring nebula with a dying star at its heart, alphabet soups of galaxies and gas planets strewn across a space scape of marvels and mysteries -- astronomers have till now seen nothing like this. Eventually, it will give us a glimpse of the very early universe, going back to just 100-250 million years after the Big Bang about 13.8 billion years ago.</p>.<p>Scientists and astronomers hope to make some sense of these pictures and others that will follow. Webb has given us only a fleeting glimpse of a tiny part of the universe. The world brought to us by the pictures may have vanished millions of years ago. If there was life in those realms, then that may also have evolved or perished. But the spectacular sights of a far moment in the cosmic past, in all their terror and glory, should humble us. They should also push us to stretch the limits of our minds to know what they mean to us. </p>
