---
title: Terps’ Work Helped Create First Images From Webb Space Telescope
date: 2022-07-12T13:59:00-04:00
author: University of Maryland
canonical_url: "https://today.umd.edu/terps-work-helped-enable-first-images-from-webb-space-telescope"
section: Articles
---
# Terps’ Work Helped Create First Images From Webb Space Telescope

*July 12, 2022* — by [Chris Carroll](/author/chris-carroll)


> UMD Astronomers, Engineers, Physicists Have Been Deeply Involved for Decades

*NASA Webb Telescope 1920x1080 — The Webb Space Telescope's new image of the Carina Nebula, a vast, roiling cloud of dust and gas 7,600 light years from Earth, reveals previously unseen areas where new stars are born.*

Soon after its Christmas launch, the [James Webb Space Telescope](https://www.jwst.nasa.gov/) (JWST) began to gently unfurl like a 70-foot robot butterfly as it glided toward a point in orbit around the sun about a million miles from the Earth. For the last few months, it’s been cooling down to space temperatures and tooling up as mission controllers prepared to open the farthest-seeing eye ever trained on the cosmos.

Now, after three decades of work and an $11 billion investment, NASA (along with partners the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency) has rolled out the first full color images from JWST, starting Monday night with the [deepest view of the distant universe](https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-delivers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet) ever recorded. Today it offered images and data for [nebulae](https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-cosmic-cliffs-glittering-landscape-of-star-birth), [galaxy clusters](https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-sheds-light-on-galaxy-evolution-black-holes) and [distant planets](https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/goddard/2022/nasa-s-webb-reveals-steamy-atmosphere-of-distant-planet-in-detail), whetting the appetite of sky watchers for groundbreaking science and eye-popping visuals to come.



*Webb space telescope is assembled in a clean room at Goddard Space Flight Center. — Prior to its 2021 launch, NASA technicians used a crane to hoist the James Webb Space Telescope, with its 21-foot mirror deployed, inside a clean room at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. (Photo courtesy of NASA)*



**Sidebar note:**

This story is featured in the Spring 2022 issue of *Terp* magazine. Find all the stories online at [terp.umd.edu](https://terp.umd.edu/).





**Topics:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/tags/research)


**Tags:** [Research](https://today.umd.edu/topic/research)


**Units:** [A. James Clark School of Engineering](https://today.umd.edu/topic/james-clark-school-engineering), [College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences](https://today.umd.edu/topic/college-computer-mathematical-and-natural-sciences)