The biggest name in sky-tech, the James Webb Space Telescope, has captured some of the world's most intricate images of distant celestial bodies — from new sights of swirling solar systems, to advanced analysis of exoplanetary atmospheres — since its famous launch on Christmas 2021. On Monday, nearly two years later, Fox News host Laura Ingraham finally heard the news. During his remarks on a new executive order aimed at regulating artificial intelligence, President Joe Biden mentioned AI's application in astronomy, noting it has enabled the Webb telescope to chart distant galaxies (and a coterie of bizarre, distant gas giants). But the mention of the Webb telescope seemed to puzzle Ingraham, who did not understand that the Webb telescope was indeed real, and then mocked Biden.
"Did he call it the ‘Webb telescope’? Isn’t it the Hubble? Is he thinking of Webb-Hubble? I don’t understand,” Ingraham said, laughing. That laughter withered, though, after the existence of the telescope was apparently confirmed for the Fox host. “There is a Webb telescope that I didn’t know about. ... I stand corrected by Joe Biden.”
For more interstellar wonder from the indeed-quite-real James Webb Space Telescope, check out the 7 most spectacular images from the telescope's first year, and a hand-picked batch of one astronomer's personal favorite Webb photos.
