What if a telescope was actually a time machine?
What if a telescope was actually a time machine? In a very real sense, the James Webb Space Telescope is exactly that. Light travels fast, but space is vast — so light takes time to reach us. When Webb picks up a faint glow from a distant galaxy, that light has been travelling for over 13 billion years. We are not seeing that galaxy as it is. We are seeing it as it was, when the universe was barely getting started. Webb orbits about one and a half million kilometres from Earth, kept cold enough to sense that ancient infrared heat-light without its own warmth drowning it out. Every observation is a genuine look into the past — not a metaphor, not a simulation. The universe's own history, written in light, arriving right now. Follow Deep Field Vault for more of the cosmos.