Photo: Dima Zel (Shutterstock)
We all held our collective breath late last year when NASA launched the long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope on its monthlong journey to a destination nearly a million miles away. After a successful deployment, the JWST has been hard at work with testing and calibration, and it’s time to see what the telescope is seeing out there in the universe.
The very first image from the Webb is set to be revealed on Monday, July 11 during a preview event at the White House, with President Joe Biden and NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in attendance. The event, scheduled for 5 p.m. ET, will be live-streamed on NASA TV. Once the image is made public, it will also be posted on NASA’s website and social media feeds.
But there’s more—here’s how to watch the main event on Tuesday, July 12.
How to watch the JWST image reveal
The Webb’s official image release day is Tuesday, July 12, which is when NASA and partner agencies (the European Space Agency and Canadian Space Agency) will unveil a set of full-color images and data from the telescope. Here’s the live coverage schedule:
9:45 a.m. ET: opening remarks10:30 a.m. ET: image release broadcast12:30 p.m. ET: media briefing with project scientistsAll events will be available to watch on NASA TV, the NASA app, and NASA’s website (NASA Live). The image release coverage at 10:30 a.m. will also be streaming on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Twitch, and Daily Motion.
If you don’t want to tune into the live coverage, you can view the images on NASA’s website upon release.
What will the JWST images show?
We don’t know exactly what the images will reveal, but NASA recently released a list of targets for the Webb’s initial observations. These include two nebulae, a galaxy cluster, and an exoplanet (a planet outside our solar system).
The public has already seen the telescope’s selfie from space, as well as instrument calibration and test images, but the photos to come are considered the first look at the JWST’s capabilities.
