NASA's James Webb Space Telescope: The stunning new images captured of the universe - 60 Minutes

[Rhiannon12866]

As NASA’s Webb telescope scours the universe to find light from the first stars and galaxies, it is also capturing the universe like never before. Scott Pelley got an inside look at Webb’s new discoveries.

[Deuxcents]

1. Fantastic! Carl Sagan would be so proud to confirm we are star stuff !

So cruel he left us too soon for him to emerge himself in all this wonder and enjoy studying it

[Rhiannon12866]

2. I know, I've thought of him, too. He would love everything that we're able to see now!

And he'd have so much more to contribute...

[Deuxcents]

3. My thought is he'd be having so much fun and we'd be the better for it

When he’d describe it all to us. I watched his PBS Cosmos faithfully..even taped em back then.

[Rhiannon12866]

4. I remember, that was a wonderful show!

If only we had it now to keep up with what's happening today now that we can see so much more!

[Deuxcents]

5. I bet someone will do it..there's just too many of us fascinated with what the Webb can tell us

[Rhiannon12866]

6. I did watch Neil deGrasse Tyson's series and that was very good, he'd be ideal to take this on!

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

7. Thank you so much for this link.

My Son The Astronomer does exo-planet research, and he may well be using the James Webb telescope down the road. I am utterly fascinated by this stuff, and I often send him a text asking, "Is the Astronomer taking questions?" He tells me amazing things, and I just love it.

Here's something I learned from him: As you probably all know (and if you didn't already, you'll now know) our galaxy, Milky Way, is on a collision course with Andromeda. The two will collide in about 4.5 billion years. Brace yourself.

Milky Way has about 300 billion stars, Andromeda about 1 trillion stars. I'd been thinking about it, and asked My Son The Astronomer just how many stars would actually crash into each other. He said, "Well, we're not sure exactly, but probably no more than ten." Oh, dear lord. I think that tells you more than anything just how vast interstellar distances are.

As it happens, many more stars will gravitationally interact, but the actual crashing into each other number holds.

For what it's worth, it's clear, according to My Son, that other, smaller galaxies have already crashed into us and have been assimilate. One way they can tell is that in various parts of the galaxy there are groups of stars travelling in a totally different direction from the stars around them.

[Rhiannon12866]

8. Wow! Thanks for all the fascinating information! I've always been interested in astronomy too.

And your son is certainly doing research at exactly the right time since we've come so far in our ability to see areas that we never were before, using breakthroughs like this amazing telescope. And thanks for the warning, hoping that we can learn enough to save ourselves in 4.5 billion years, that is if we're still here.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

14. Oh, yeah, I could go on and on like any other proud mom,

but I'll spare you.

I will say that often when we talk I ask him astronomy questions and I always learn new stuff.

He should not have a lot of trouble finding a job when he completes his PhD, which is scheduled to happen at the end of this year.

[scipan]

13. My god, it's full of galaxies!

[NJCher]

9. Lately

I’ve been disappointed in the news productions of cbs, but this was definitely outstanding reporting.

Thanks for the info from YS, poindexter.

[Rhiannon12866]

10. I actually hesitated posting this after the fallout from last week,

But I agree that this was an outstanding report.

[MagaSmash]

11. I predict Webb will reveal to us that we are not alone in the Universe.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

15. It's actually looking more and more like we are currently

the only intelligent, technological species out there. It does not seem as though life gets any kind of a start at all very readily, and progressing all the way to an intelligent, technological species is probably extremely rare.

For one thing, it's highly probably that having a large moon, as we have, is crucial. The large moon stabilizes our axial tilt, and makes the daily rotation more reasonable in that it slows it down. It also gives us tides, and tidal areas seem to be crucial to life and evolution.

At this point, according to My Son The Astronomer, we have not yet found a planet with a large moon. Also, a lot of the planets we've found are tidally locked, meaning they face one side to their star all the time, like Mercury. Or our moon.

Another thing to keep in mind is that some 3/4 of all the stars in our galaxy are red dwarfs. Very different from our sun. So if life evolves on any of the planets around the vast majority of the stars in the galaxy, it's bound to be extremely different from what we have here.

Despite the 300 billion stars in our galaxy, only a small percent are going to be in the galactic Goldilocks zone. The closer you get to the center the more of a problem cosmic radiation is.

And when people blithely assume we've been visited by aliens with FTL (faster than light) drive, they don't understand how highly improbable FTL drive is -- and don't just invoke the "they're thousands, maybe millions of years ahead of us" thing -- because nothing can cancel the laws of physics. Oh, and the faster you travel, the more you're exposed to cosmic radiation. I will concede that it's possible advanced technology could come up with an effective shielding to travel at very high speeds, so perhaps that problem can be ignored.

Oh, and don't invoke "we'll travel vast distances by using wormholes" because going into a wormhole will kill you. Yep. Kill you.

I suggest everyone even remotely interested in this topic read How to Die in Space by Paul M. Sutter. He's an astrophysicist and has a wonderfully snarky tone in the book.

[republianmushroom]

12. Unbelievable

Awesome

[Joinfortmill]

16. Awe inspiring and beyond comprehension. Really it difficult to wrap one's mind around this.