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- [Narrator] It is one of the most complex

and sophisticated scientific instruments ever built.

It is orbiting our sun a million kilometers out in space,

in temperatures of minus 266 degrees Celsius.

It is a time machine that will peer deep into the past

and reveal unexplored reaches.

And it will be our key to understanding where we fit

in this enormous universe.

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Launched aboard an Ariane 5 rocket, the James Webb Telescope

has successfully reached its destination,

unfurled, and begun its great adventure.

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- Hubble revolutionized astronomy.

Hubble showed us the early universe.

Hubble showed us what the universe works like.

And as these revolutionary findings came along,

people realized we need a next generation space telescope.

This was 25 years ago.

And this is how Webb came into being.

Now you can see 25 years of development time,

this is not unusual for a large space mission,

from the first idea to fruition to the launch.

And this is why these missions

are really once in a generation launches.

We are witnessing something particularly special,

that an astronomer typically gets to witness, once,

if they're lucky, twice, in their entire career.

- James Webb Space Telescope is a collaboration

between NASA, ISA, and the Canadian Space Agency.

So altogether that's 24 countries,

lots of industrial companies,

academic institutions, universities,

and thousands of scientists across the whole world

are now waiting to use the telescope.

So by combining the power of the best in engineering

and science from all of those countries

in this international collaboration,

we can do much more together than we could do on our own.

- The origin of Webb is the search for our origins.

We wanna find out where the first galaxies formed,

how they formed, when they started making their stars,

in the very early universe, not long after the Big Bang.

And to do this, Webb uses this big mirror

and its infrared vision to look into these really early days

observe the light from these galaxies

that's been traveling to us for billions of years.

And it shows us these galaxies

how they were billions of years ago.

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- Sure, so infrared is a longer wavelength in visible light.

So we can't see infrared, but James Webb can.

And what's important about an infrared telescope

is it allows us to see through clouds of gas and dust

and see the planets and stars and galaxies that are beyond.

In addition, James Webb has a larger mirror than Hubble,

so it can see back further in time

and it's orbiting at a different point.

- James Webb is very complimentary

to everything that has been done before,

to Hubble, to Herschel, but will be a huge step forward

just because the collective area is huge.

6.5 meter meter is pretty impressive.

Hubble, as a comparison, was 2.4.

So we're talking of a collective area

which is much bigger, much more sensitivity.

We say a hundred times more sensitive,

with a compliment of state of the art instruments

which will take images and spectra in wavelength regimes

that we haven't explored as much from space up to now.

- [Narrator] The telescope houses four scientific packages.

MIRI, mid-infrared instrument,

the near infrared NIRCam,

NIRSpec, a spectrographic analyzer,

and the NIRISS imager and guidance sensor.

- The near infrared spectrograph, or NIRSpec,

it's one of the four scientific instruments

that we fly on James Webb Space Telescope,

or Webb Telescope.

It's very important because it will allow us

to analyze the light of the astronomical objects

we will observe.

Spectrograph works very much like a prism,

there's a prism inside our instrument and other gratings.

And they, like the prism splits the white light

into its rainbow colors,

this instrument will split the near infrared lights

from the astronomical object into its components.

And this is very useful to scientists

because from that they can understand the physics

of the objects they are observing,

what's of the temperature, the elements,

the physical condition and therefore we can understand

what's going on on objects we observe.

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So we will observe all sorts of astronomical objects,

from galaxies, and the focus is very much on

very far away galaxy, galaxies that are

13 billion light years away from us.

So back in the far past that they were forming

soon after the Big Bang.

From very, we call nearby objects,

which are not really nearby,

but they are exoplanets in stars

around our neighborhood,

the neighborhood of the solar systems in our galaxy.

So this is the type of objects

we will observe and investigations.

It's about understanding what are

the atmospheric condition on the exoplanets

or what are the physical condition of the galaxies

we observe far away.

So going back to the

very far away galaxies,

this instrument, NIRSpec, will play a crucial role

in observing these far away galaxy

and telling us what the physics, so again,

what are elements are present, in which proportion,

what are the temperature.

And that is fundamental

if you want to understand our galaxy form,

which is one of the big question we have in astronomy.

We see trillions of galaxies around us.

How all these galaxy form?

And with this instrument we can

piece together more of the puzzle.

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It compliments the other instrument

because of its functional spectrograph.

So on the Webb Telescope we have cameras,

other type of spectrograph.

One particular, MIRI,

which is also a partially European instrument,

which will focus on the medium infrared light.

Near infrared is the focus of NIRSpec.

So analyzing the light that comes from astronomical object

in the near infrared wavelength range.

While with the camera we see images.

So we detect the objects and we know where they are

and what are the main characteristics.

With NIRSpec we focus really on certain objects

and analyze the lights and split the lines into components.

And with that, understand the physics

of the objects we are observing.

- [Narrator] The telescope is in a halo orbit at the L2,

or second LaGrange point,

and is orientated away from our sun,

with the sun shield keeping the instruments

at their very low operating temperatures.

- There is the telescope pointing relative

to the spacecraft.

So we waited for the near infrared camera

to get the detectors cold enough

so that we could take the images.

And we did some evaluation of that.

And once we were convinced that it could take images,

we were really trying to determine

if we pointed at a bright isolated star,

where is the the telescope pointing?

So we, we picked a star that was very bright

and didn't have any stars near it

that would contaminate the image.

We know that the primary mirror segments aren't aligned yet,

so they actually act like 18 separate telescopes

and we expect to see 18 separate images,

one for each mirror,

that are a little bit blurry at this point

because we haven't aligned or focused anything.

And so we pointed at a bright star and we made a mosaic.

We actually took the near infrared camera

and we took images in different parts of the sky.

And then we looked for the 18 spots

from the 18 different telescopes, if you will.

And we were very excited to find them.

They were actually very close to where we were pointing,

well within our expected size of where they might land.

And the 18 spots were actually

fairly close to each other as well.

So really everything was very close to what was predicted

and much better than what we considered

to be the worst case pointing.

So we were really excited about that.

- [Narrator] Over the following months,

each individual mirror was adjusted and focused,

then aligned together to create one single image.

The alignment image of the single bright star

gave an indication of the power of the Webb Telescope.

As seen here behind the bright star.,

the image captured numerous distant galaxies.

The science team then captured several sample images

of different objects.

- The first images from the James Webb Space Telescope

are designed to demonstrate the full range

of the capabilities of the telescope.

- Sorry, I'm (indistinct).

- [Narrator] Scientists then sat down

and studied these many test images, which amazed the team.

- The cluster is, you know, it's probably bigger than that.

There's lots of (indistinct).

- Wow. - Yes.

- But I think that when you stretch the background...

I didn't have to say... (team members laughing)

- You should have said it.

(team members chattering)

- Awesome.

(team member speaking in foreign language)

- This is Iraq from the seventies, eighties, nineties.

- The camera, it really stays the same in all wavelengths.

(team members chattering)

- We're seeing a sample of the amazing science

that Webb will be able to do over the coming years.

Remember, it's just a sample.

So we are seeing scenes and vistas

from across the universe, you know,

toward the first galaxies,

to stellar birth and stellar death.

And we are seeing an exoplanet spectrum,

for the first time with Webb,

showing water or steam in its atmosphere.

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So here, what we are seeing in this deep field image,

Webb's first deep field,

is a massive cluster of galaxies.

And what this cluster does is it bends the light

from even more distant galaxies coming behind it.

And you can see that as sort of bananas

or streaks in the field.

And this field allows us to look for

some of the very first luminous structures in the universe.

The first stars and galaxies.

And this was one of the reasons

that Webb was originally built.

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So with the Southern Ring Nebula, the image here,

what you see is a star that is similar to our own sun,

but five billion years in the future when it dies.

And so when stars like that die

they push off the outer atmospheres.

And this gas cloud you see is filled with elements

like carbon and oxygen,

kind of elements that we are made of.

And this is how dying stars seed the galaxy

with these elements that ultimately are important

for the formation of life.

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So here we are seeing a small group of galaxies

that what we call interactive,

actually colliding with each other.

And this is a very fundamental part

in the evolution of galaxies.

They bump into each other all the time.

And when they bump into each other, they create shockwaves.

And in these shockwaves you have

this tremendous formation of new stars.

And you see these shockwaves in this image

and you see the formation of stars there.

- Yes, this is a set of galaxies

that are sort of locked in a cosmic dance.

And so they're moving and they're,

two of them are merging,

and we can see all of them moving around in that

and in their interactions.

- You also see the galaxies superimposed

on this field of distant galaxies in the background,

whose light has probably traveled

through the universe for billions of years.

And so this is very typical for Webb images,

that everywhere we look we are gonna have

these distant galaxies in the background.

- And one of the main things that we want to look at

with the James Webb Space Telescope

is the most distant galaxies in our universe,

the furthest objects away.

And that also means that they were the first objects to form

after the Big Bang,

the first stars and galaxies about 13.5 billion years ago.

The reason that all of their light is now in the infrared

is because the universe is expanding.

And as it expands the light from those most distant objects

gets redshifted to infrared wavelengths.

So again, Hubble can't see them,

but the James Webb Space Telescope is designed

exactly to see these very distant, very faint objects.

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- Those are mission lines. - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

- Oh yeah, this is such a beautiful image

and may be my favorite.

What we see here is still a nursery.

A cloud of gas and dust that is actively forming new stars.

And you see this as sort of a landscape

that looks like mountains,

because the cloud is being eroded away by hot stars

that's off the field to the top.

And they're cooking off the cloud.

And as they do that, they push on it.

And so what that means is that you can form new stars

sort of close to the surface of the cloud there,

and you can see those stars popping out.

And you can see them also create jets and outflows

as part of this process

that move through the cloud and create

these streaky structures in it.

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- [Narrator] In comparison, the Hubble imagery here

captures the visible light.

Now, compared to the Webb images,

you can see the dark dust turn transparent,

revealing what is within and behind the veil.

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- I'm really excited about James Webb

and the spectroscopic capabilities.

It's absolutely revolutionary,

the sensitivity and the resolution we can get,

to look at the dust and the forming stars

in some of the very most distant galaxies to us.

Where we can actually see individual stars

and work out what the chemical compositions

they're producing, in terms of dust,

and the minerals they're producing

and the life cycle of matter in the universe.

That chemical evolution of galaxies.

And no other instrument, no ground-based instrument

can do this 'cause of the atmosphere.

Only space-based instruments can do this.

And previously, the previous generations have been so small

they've been able to only look at galaxies the Milky Way

or in the Magellanic Clouds.

But James Webb will be able to push that envelope out

to lots of galaxies in the local group.

And so we can look at very difficult,

different formation scenarios towards the early universe.

So that's what I'm most excited about

is these dying stars and forming stars.

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- [Narrator] The hope is Webb will be able to see

so far back in time it will reveal

the very first galaxies and stars

created after the Big Bang.

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- Lots of big questions.

How do galaxies evolve?

So the Hubble Deep Field has given us some hints

of what we think is happening,

but we haven't been able to see it in enough detail

or with enough galaxies to really know.

So it's going to fill in almost,

you could think of it as a gap in time,

between the Big Bang and the galaxies

we can study with Hubble,

and we'll find galaxies that are in that gap.

- [Narrator] This image is of the spiral galaxy IC 5332,

which is over 29 million light years away.

The infrared Webb sees through like an x-ray

into the interior structure of the galaxy.

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- Well, it's gonna allow us to understand

every phase of cosmic history

for the last 13 and a half billion years.

So we would answer questions like how are galaxies formed

and where do we fit into the cosmos?

We'll be able to see the formation of stars and planets.

We'll also be able to understand atmospheres of exoplanets.

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- [Narrator] The James Webb also captured images

of local residents in our own solar system.

Here is Jupiter seen in the near infrared.

It reveals the polar auroras and the heat signatures

deep within the clouds of our largest neighbor.

Here is Neptune as never seen before,

its rings clearly visible along with several of its moons.

The most prominent features of Neptune's atmosphere

in this image are a series of bright patches

in the planet's southern hemisphere

that represent high altitude methane ice clouds.

More subtly, a thin line of brightness

circling the planet's equator

could be a visual signature

of global atmospheric circulation

that powers Neptune's winds and storms.

- I think the great thing about Webb

is that it actually touches all of astronomy.

So because it's so flexible, you can use it to study

things inside our own solar system,

but you can also use it to find examples

of the very first galaxies.

So it really is spanning

almost the entire history of the universe.

So it's really gonna be transformative

to lots of different areas.

I think the two areas that are gonna be transformed the most

are my own field, which is finding and understanding

these very early galaxies.

And then on the other end of the scale,

actually looking at planets

around other stars that are relatively nearby to us.

But I think every single astronomer in the world

will ultimately be taking some of the results from Webb

and incorporating it into their own research.

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- [Narrator] Astronomers have made giant steps

in our understanding of the universe over the past decades,

but there remains much to learn about our cosmic origins.

And the range of questions waiting to be answered

is causing high expectations.

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- Webb is more than tens of thousands of scientists.

Webb is eight billion people looking for their origins.

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