How Does Webb Reveals the Early Universe Work?

Webb helps us see what the universe looked like when it was just a baby.

Imagine you're looking at a big, dark room from outside. You can't see anything inside, it's too far away and too dim. But if someone turns on a light in that room, suddenly you can see everything: the walls, the floor, even small toys on the table. That’s kind of like what Webb does.

Webb is like a super-powerful pair of glasses for space. It looks at very far away stars and galaxies, ones that were around when the universe was just a few hundred million years old, which is like a baby compared to today’s 13.8 billion years.

But those early stars and galaxies are very faint because they're so far away. So Webb has special tools called infrared eyes, which can see things that are too dim for regular telescopes. It's like having night vision goggles in the dark, you can spot people even if they’re not shining a light.

Webb sends all these images back to Earth, and scientists use them to learn about how the universe began and grew up over time.