James Webb Space Telescope's stunning achievements are an example of humanity at its best – Scotsman comment

The James Webb Space Telescope is enabling scientists to see about as far back in time as it is possible to see.

Look to the stars: the James Webb Space Telescope is revealing new facts about the dawning of the universe (Picture: Mariana Suarez/AFP via Getty Images)

It has now confirmed the existence of four galaxies, including one dated to just 320 million years after the Big Bang – the oldest known thing in the universe. Yale University astronomer Pieter van Dokkum described the telescope as a “technical tour de force”, adding: “The frontier is moving almost every month [with] only 300 million years of unexplored history of the universe between these galaxies and the Big Bang.”

The light from these galaxies has travelled such a distance that it has been distorted by the expansion of the universe, so that its wavelength has shifted towards the red end of the spectrum, which helps to date it. The scientists were even able to glean important information about what the galaxies were like. They were relatively small at about 100 million solar masses – compared to the Milky Way’s estimated 1.5 trillion solar masses – and are thought to have been less than 100 million years old. There was evidence of hydrogen and helium, but not more complex elements such as carbon, oxygen and nitrogen.

This ability to travel back so far in time, almost to the dawn of creation, is shedding new light on our understanding of the universe, literally and metaphorically. That humans are capable of such extraordinary vision is worth celebrating and holding up in contrast to our species’ many faults. How much more could we achieve if our focus was on expanding our knowledge, rather than relatively petty, and sometimes violent, squabbles of one kind or another?