On July 12, JWST is going to release its first multi-color, fully processed science images. For the past several weeks, people have been playing a wild guessing game of “just what will JWST look at first?”

Well, on July 8, NASA decided to end that guessing game by releasing a list of targets. They span most of the range of what JWST is designed to see. There is a star-forming region: the Carina Nebula. There is a planetary spectrum of the gas giant WASP-96 b. There is a pretty object – Stephan’s Quintet – and a dying object – the Southern Ring Nebula. And where I thought they would look at a deep field to show us the beginning of the universe, they are doing something unexpected.

Instead of looking directly at the early universe, JWST looked at SMACS 0723, which is a nearby galaxy cluster, so that JWST could – like so many other scopes – use its gravitational lensing to see into the early universe.

I’m intrigued by this decision. While it’s exciting to see just how far back JWST will be able to see with this gravitational boost to its observing powers, I really was looking forward to undistorted views of early galaxies.

I’m sure they had a reason, and we’re just going to have to wait until July 12 to learn that reason.

More Information

NASA press release