n Tuesday afternoon, we were treated to some of the most detailed images of the universe that anyone has ever seen. The pictures were the first to be released from the James Webb space telescope (JWST) and were greeted with joy by astronomers and journalists. The former because the images demonstrated that the telescope was working and the latter because the pictures would be much more pleasing to view on a newspaper’s front page than the candidates for leadership of the Conservative party.
The first images are, literally, wonderful. Specialist astronomers can see details of the birth and death of stars, as well as all the stages in between; and witness gravitational lensing, predicted by Einstein, previously only partially recorded by the JWST’s predecessor, the Hubble space telescope (HST). They continue to rhapsodise about the number and diversity of exoplanets – planets outside the solar system – that the JWST should find, and how instruments on the telescope will be able to detect and analyse exoplanetary atmospheres. The first signature of life on a planet beyond the solar system might be recorded by the JWST.
These discoveries are important and hugely significant – for astronomers and astrophysicists. But how important is the JWST for the much greater number of people for whom the closest they get to the study of stars is a daily read of their horoscope? It is true that increasing the sum of human knowledge is a Good Thing. And that understanding the origin of the universe and the potential for life beyond Earth are questions that drive many scientists (myself included). But is the £8.4bn price tag worth it? What might come from the JWST that benefits us all?
For a start, there is the inspirational value of the images. The simple joy in appreciating their beauty. The colour and texture of the pictures we have seen bring to (my) mind works by some of the finest artists. What would Turner or Monet have been moved to paint if they could have seen the JWST’s shot of the Carina Nebula? How might contemporary artists, including poets and musicians, be inspired by the JWST, enriching all of us with their interpretations?
There are, though, more practical benefits that have already come from the telescope. The real heroes in the JWST story are not the scientists who will interpret the results. Not even the instrument specialists who designed and built the equipment that will detect planets, stars and galaxies. The heroes are the engineers and technologists who built the telescope. If the JWST is pushing the limits of how far back in time cosmologists can see, it has been enabled by engineers pushing at the limits of technology. And whenever technologies advance in one field, opportunities to apply those advances elsewhere inevitably follow.