The James Webb Space Telescope launches and reveals its first images
The deepest infrared view of the universe ever taken, gathered in just 12.5 hours
Quick facts
- Agencies
- NASA, ESA, CSA
- Launch date
- 25 December 2021
- Launch vehicle
- Ariane 5 (Kourou, French Guiana)
- First images released
- 11-12 July 2022
What happened
The James Webb Space Telescope, a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency, launched on 25 December 2021 aboard an Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's spaceport in French Guiana. After a month-long journey to its observing position near the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, about 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, the telescope spent months unfolding its segmented mirror and cooling its infrared instruments to operating temperature. On 11 and 12 July 2022, NASA revealed the telescope's first full-color science images, including a view of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 that the agency described as the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe taken to date, gathered in just 12.5 hours of observing time.
Why it matters
Webb's infrared instruments let astronomers see galaxies whose light has been stretched by the universe's expansion beyond what Hubble's optical and near-infrared cameras could detect, opening direct observation of some of the earliest galaxies to form after the Big Bang and extending the line of orbiting observatories that began with Hubble three decades earlier.
How we know
NASA's own press release on the first images documents the launch date, the SMACS 0723 observation, and the ESA/CSA partnership; the European Space Agency's own Webb site independently corroborates the July 2022 release date for the first images.
Sources
- NASA. NASA Reveals Webb Telescope's First Images of Unseen Universe · Primary source (author-declared)nasa.gov · Cited as a "primary" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- ESA/Webb. Webb's First Images · General sourceesawebb.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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