2023-10-01 Chandra Wickramasinghe on The Webb Telescopes First Year

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The James Webb Space Telescope has just celebrated its incredibly productive "first year," lazily orbiting in its extended L-2 location ... a million miles "behind" the Earth (as seen from the Sun).

What has it actually found?

Well, here's a (partial ...) list:

1) First Deep Field IR image:

Webb's first official telescopic observation was the most detailed, "deep" (long-range) infrared image of the Universe ever created ... leading eventually tro a potentially "mind blowing" conclusion ....

2) Most distant active "supermassive black hole"

3) Webb's first "exoplanet":

On January 11, 2023, NASA reported finding Webb's first exoplanet, LHS 475 b, located 41 light-years away from the Earth. Webb’s transmission spectrum revealed it to be (wait for it ...) an Earth-sized terrestrial world ....

4) Unprecedented IR views of Saturn

5) Equally unprecedented IR views of Jupiter

6) New, IR structural details of "asteroid belts" orbiting near-by stars

7) Earliest existence of complex "organic" molecules ... in a galaxy ~12 billion light years distant

But, the biggest "discovery" of all may be that the Universe itself -- based, on Webb's unique first "deep field" IR image, a "surprisingly mature" galaxies at an "impossibly 'young' Universe Age": in fact, the Universe might be TWICE as old as astronomer have been telling -- not "13.8 billion years old" ... but,  "26.7 billion years!"

Richard C. Hoagland
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