Awed By The Lord
'The Lord merely spoke, and the heavens were created. He breathed the word, and all the stars were born. '
Psalms 33:6
On Monday, this first photograph from the new James Webb Space Telescope1 was released. The scientific instrumentation on this spacecraft allows astronomers and physicists to “see” even further into our vast universe than ever before, and the initial imagery (including other photos released on Tuesday) had many of the science team crying tears of sheer joy.
Compared to a similar image of the same tiny “dark” area of space made by the Hubble Space Telescope, this image shows many more galaxies, each made up of 200 - 400 billion stars. This image gathered light for just a fraction of the time that it took for Hubble to take a much less detailed photo. Once thought to contain about 200 billion galaxies, our universe is now estimated to be home to 2 trillion galaxies, and the Webb results may very well increase that estimated number.
This image fills me with a great sense of awe and reverence. The Creator of all that exists in this unthinkably vast universe loves us.
He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.
Colossians 1:17
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI