James Webb Telescope. NASA released a test image

The image, seen on Wednesday, shows several stars with spines and distinct galaxies in the background. As Jane Ribe, a researcher on the James Webb Space Telescope Operations Team at the Robert H. Goddard Space Flight Center, said, “The least bright spots in this image are the types of galaxies that Webb will study in his first year of work.”

In the announcement, NASA asserted that the image is “one of the deepest images of the universe ever captured” and offers “a tantalizing insight into what will be presented in the coming weeks, months and years.”

The image consists of 72 images taken in 32 hours in early May. It was made with the precision-guidance sensor (FGS) of the tested telescope, not by a device used to observe space objects.

“I was pleased to see all the detailed structures clearly visible in these ‘faint’ (low-brightness) galaxies,” said Neil Rowlands of Webb’s Fine Guidance Sensor.

The telescope is expected to send its first multi-colour science-quality images more than six months after its July 12 launch.

The Webb Telescope is a revolutionary instrument developed by scientists from NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. The instrument is a more advanced and powerful successor to the Hubble Space Telescope.

Astronomers hope that thanks to the telescope it will be possible, among other things, to study the atmospheres of planets outside the solar system in search of signs of life and to identify the first stars and galaxies that formed about 200 million years after the Big Bang.

In early May, it was reported that the space observatory was in the right place to begin its work. The telescope, weighing more than 6.3 tons, was launched into space on December 25, 2021, and then reached the point L2, which is located 1.5 million kilometers from our planet, almost four times more than the moon.