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#James Webb vs. Hubble: Compare their images side-by-side

“James Webb vs. Hubble: Compare their images side-by-side”

The first full-color images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have been released — and they’re absolutely breathtaking.

That’s because the telescope has yielded the deepest and sharpest infrared photos of the early universe to date.

Webb is the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched into space — a promising successor to the famous Hubble Telescope.

Greetings, humanoids

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Here’s are the top three differences between the two telescopes, as per NASA:

  • Webb primarily looks at the universe in the infrared, while Hubble mostly studies it at optical and ultraviolet wavelengths. This makes a big difference, as infrared views can peer through cosmic dust and unveil hidden objects or formations.
  • Webb also has a much bigger mirror than Hubble. This larger light-collecting area means that it can peer farther back into time than Hubble is capable of doing.
  • While Hubble orbits around the Earth at an altitude of 570km, Webb is much farther away. It sits at the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrange point, 1.5 million kilometers away!

Even with our humble, earthbound eyes, we can still observe the difference in image quality and details the telescopes produce.

Take a look:

SMACS 0723

SMACS 0723 is a cluster of galaxies within the southern constellation of Volans. It’s about 5.12 billion light-years away.

James Webb vs Hubble