Sorry. Nerd Alert.
https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-116
Webb coming on three years out at L2. It has performed brilliantly. The "Wow, look at that" - visuals that dazzle - seem to be less regular now.
But, one risks bring lulled into complacency. The remarkable stuff is happening everyday. Jimbo can see almost to the beginning of the Universe.
Trouble is ya gotta be on the nerdy end of the spectrum, I think, to slog though the details. Here's one of the latest Webb visuals:
Cool colors and smudges. Heck is this?? Veg out at the link. Basically, this is a gravitationally-lensed photo nearly 13 billion years ago. Of a really small "patch of sky".
Recall
gravitational lensing is light waves "bent" around something massive (so massive its warping space-time)
between the observer (Webb) and a " thing". The thing in this case is a 600 million year old "baby galaxy".
Yes. It's "behind" something massive, so the thing is "further" away from us, therefore "older" than the massive thing that is bending its light.
But wait..there's more. The space kids can "untangle" (estimate what is really there vs. what is duplicated) in lensed images.
Below, is the "thing". The right side "inset (white box)".
The so called "Firefly Sparkle Galaxy". A "string" of 10 different star-forming regions, in a gravitational dance (spinning, merging) with themselves and two "companions" (themselves ancient galaxies too), that after a few billion years
may look like our Milky Way does today. A spiral galaxy, 100,000 light years in diameter.
We see Firefly Sparkle when the Universe was less than 1% of it's current estimated age. Again, the link will be much clearer I am sure.
It's way more fascinating and scientifically deep than my "Dick & Jane" summary in this post. And there's trillions of light dots/smudges" yet to analyze.. on top of the thousands we just got started on that we already imaged the past couple years with Jimbo.
It is a great to time to be alive and able to do this .. IMHO that is. Big questions. Stunning answers. Remarkable machines.
"
How" did all this stuff get here is coming into better view. Some of their guesses may/will yet be prove wrong. Other parts are strictly mind- blowing .. even now.
"
Why" are we here? Dunno if "science/math" can
ever answer that one ... depends on what one believes I guess.