In the mid-nineteenth century, William Henry Fox Talbot, one of the inventors of photography, proposed a cutting-edge experiment. Scientists were beginning to study light beyond human vision, light we now describe as infrared and ultraviolet, and Talbot conceived of a way to photograph with these invisible rays. Although photography was less than a decade old, and he never tried the method himself, Talbot was confident that “the eye of the camera would see plainly where the human eye would find nothing but darkness.” Jump forwardtwenty-first century, and images from the James Webb Space Telescope deliver on that promise. The telescope, which was launched into orbit in 2021 and relies on methods that echo those proposed by Talbot, observes infrared light with seemingly impressive ease, and its vividly colored, highly detailed images show us what had previously been hidden from view. But to depict what the infrared camera sees plainly requires another jump, a leap from detecting the presence of light to translating it for our eyes.
