James Webb Space Telescope First Images

[kittyray]

I wrote something a little more thoughtful and verbose, but I accidentally swiped back and the auto-save didn't seem to work, but I'm too tired to try to repeat. Basically I just wanted a thread for people to have feels and nerd out about it all. The universe is vast and beautiful, and we're all just specks. It's also just a marvel at human engineering and how much technology has grown in just the few decades since Hubble was launched. I wish I understood more about the technical aspects of what we've learned and the implications of what we can learn. But at least I can see the images. There's just so much fucking out there. You can view them on the (you need an account to see links) but I'll post some here, too.

People who are a whole lot smarter and eloquent than I am have spoken greatly on this, but I've been kind of Going Through It and these images were something I didn't know I needed.











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Please share your thoughts. Whether it's just basking in the sublime or waxing poetic or nerding out or teaching us all something or whatever!

[Lyrichord]

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When I'm feeling frustrated, I try to remember that we're all just on this orb, rotating around our planet's axis every 24 hours. Circling around the sun every year. And that sun star is traveling at high speeds through the galaxy as it spins. I don't have adequate words to describe how mind boggling it is to stare at these images and know they're only showing something like 1 quadrillionth of the universe, and that's just the highest number I can pull of the top of my head.

The sheer tiny scale of quarks and atomic sub particles gets me as well. I think I read that if humans are 10^0 meters, the universe is 10^26m, and a proton 10^-15m.

[phantasia]

Its so beautiful. I really love the second one with the landscape in. Is that also a photo? Or a rendering?

I also really love those images with the supermoon in



I have very mixed feelings on the exsporations of outer space. On the one side I think tis good and we need to know whats out there. On the other side I feel it cost a lot of money that could have been used to feed the hungry etc.

[kittyray]

@(you need an account to see links) That was really well put. It can be overwhelming, but really calming to remember that there's so much out there and to the universe everything consuming you is a meaningless nothing, even if on a personal scale it's the entire world. Sometimes I get this undulating experience when I remember how we still haven't explored the depths of our oceans and then realizing that there are depths on other planets in our solar system we can't explore yet, and how that is just one of many in our galaxy, and then look at the first image I shared and all of the other galaxies in just a small window of space. Fuck, man.
@(you need an account to see links) That actually isn't a landscape (though it certainly looks like one), it's the Carina Nebula, where stars are being born. From the flickr:

Webb’s new view gives us a rare peek into stars in their earliest, rapid stages of formation. For an individual star, this period only lasts about 50,000 to 100,000 years.

I do understand your concerns about funding, there's a lot we do wrong with how we fun aid for those in need, but when you consider how minuscule NASA's budget is compared to other US agencies, I don't feel it's being misappropriated.

[Kibba]

These are so aesthetically pleasing!

I've been seeing everybody posting these everywhere. They're stunning and so amazing that we can be able to see this pics from NASA

[RicoBandito]

Love this so much. I don’t really understand fully the whole science. The grain of sand mentioned on the pics description is interesting and I can picture it but it’s so beyond my head otherwise.
But makes me think how small we are. What if somewhere out there is like a different mirror of this here but slightly different, skewed, or ahead in time or behind us in time. Beings living life like we are here but better, hopefully not worse.

Another thought I had while browsing was this. The star’s death looks a lot like a cell? Or an embryo of some sort. Or the mountain made up of space gasses. Looks a lot like actual mountains you know? We’re all connected. *mind blown*

[DarkSkies]

Wow those are stunning pics!! We're indeed a little part of something bigger, the universe is wide and nysterious.

I get the feeling also that the unknow is very overwhelming. I believe I remembered hearing that the experiment of using moon soil to grow plants in a controlled environment had a good start, so maybe we get to know the Moon first before Mars.

[Lyrichord]

@(you need an account to see links) Thank you. We know more about our moon and have mapped it better than our own oceans as well. Which is just, wow!

[♥ Shazi ♥]

i was watching the countdown waiting for these photos to be released and they did not disappoint. sooo beautiful and just mindblowing. the first one looking billions of years into the past & the fact those stars in those galaxies might not even exist anymore. i love everything about this.

[Meepit]

I like watching videos on the vastness of space and then the existential dread sets in lol I saw this the other day and it was just like daaaayum.