Webb Space Telescope

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Webb is bigger. That means it provides us with much higher resolution. And web has a set of instruments that are sensitive to inferad vaelancs, meaning you can look through a larder foreground dust. But also, the light from the farthest reaches of the universe is red shifted into the infred. So webb is able to peer deeper and farther back in time.

This week, Nasa unveiled the first images from the James Webb space telescope – much awaited pictures that show our universe in glorious technicolour. The $10bn telescope, now 1 million miles from Earth, will allow scientists to look back to the dawn of time. Prof Ray Jayawardhana, who is working with one of the instruments onboard the JWST, speaks to Ian Sample about what these images show us, and what they mean for the very human quest of discovering our place in the cosmos.. Help support our independent journalism at theguardian.com/sciencepod