Joe Biden to release James Webb Space Telescope's first image at White House on July 12

US President Joe Biden will release one of the James Webb Space Telescope's first images during a preview event at the White House on July 12. In an official statement, NASA said that the picture will be released at 5 pm EST on July 11 (2:30 am IST on July 12), a few hours before the release of the rest of the images.

NASA and its partners the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) will release the remaining photographs at 10:30 am EST (8 pm IST) on July 12. These pictures will be accompanied by spectroscopic data (information stored in light beams) of the objects the $10 billion observatory has targeted so far.

At 8 pm IST later, NASA will air the live coverage of the event, which will take place at Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, on its app, official website and YouTube channel. The agency has said that the images will be simultaneously released on its social media handles and will mark the beginning of Webb's operations. 

What would the images feature?

Last week, NASA shared a list of objects that Webb targeted for testing its capabilities and take pictures of them in the process. The list includes one exoplanet, two nebulae, one galaxy group and one galaxy cluster. The targeted exoplanet is WASP-96b, which lies 1,150 light-years from Earth, is composed mainly of gas and one year on this planet lasts just 3.4 days. 

The other targets include the Carina Nebula (7,600 light-years away), Southern Ring Nebula (2,000 light-years away), a galaxy group named Stephan’s Quintet (290 million light-years away), and the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. Tap here to read more about Webb's targets. 

Late last month, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, while speaking at the Space Telescope Science Institute's media event said that Webb will reveal the deepest image of the universe. Launched on December 25, 2021, the telescope has been installed at the second Lagrange point with an aim to peer back in time and study more about the birth and evolution of our universe.