All the Angles We Tried for Our James Webb Space Telescope Article Before We Decided that Space Itself Is Cool Enough

Thank you, NASA.

Star birth in the Carina NebulaNASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

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NASA has released the first photos from the James Webb Space Telescope, and they’re really fucking cool.

I, personally, will take any excuse to divert my attention away from the shitstorm we’ve created for ourselves here on Earth. But my coworkers and I spent a while trying to figure out how best to sell the photos to our readers. Here’s a sampling:

“We Finally Have the New Webb Photos of Space. They’re Kinda Disappointing.”
Meh.
—Jeremy Schulman

“Finally, A Reason to Go On Living.”
I want to meet the aliens.
Abigail Weinberg

“I Hate This World. Eject Me to Space.”
—Inae Oh

“It’s Just Pictures of Colored Dots. I’ll Pass.”
— Jacob Rosenberg

“These Photos Provide a Majestic Backdrop to Listen to Jamie Raskin Read the Federalist Papers”
—Jeremy Schulman

“Oh, Fuck, That’s Cylon Raider”
All this has happened before…
—Jeremy Schulman

“You Think Biden’s Old. This Is the Earliest Recorded Light.”
—Anonymous Contributor

All right. Here are the photos. (To hear about these images from people who actually know what they’re talking about, visit NASA.)

The deepest infrared image of the universe yet. These stars are older than each member of our gerontocracy combined.

NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

A dying star. Would that we’d all go out in such a blaze of glory.

NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

Star birth in the Carina Nebula

NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

Stephan’s Quintet, a collection of galaxies. Is there anybody in there?

ASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

We need to start raising significantly more in donations from our online community of readers, especially from those who read Mother Jones regularly but have never decided to pitch in because you figured others always will. We also need long-time and new donors, everyone, to keep showing up for us.

In "It's Not a Crisis. This Is the New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, how brutal it is to sustain quality journalism right now, what makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there, and why support from readers is the only thing that keeps us going. Despite the challenges, we're optimistic we can increase the share of online readers who decide to donate—starting with hitting an ambitious $300,000 goal in just three weeks to make sure we can finish our fiscal year break-even in the coming months.

Please learn more about how Mother Jones works and our 47-year history of doing nonprofit journalism that you don't elsewhere—and help us do it with a donation if you can. We've already cut expenses and hitting our online goal is critical right now.

payment methods

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