To an extent, yes, which is why DSF images tend to be aimed at "empty" sections of sky.
There are a few factors involved AFAIU:
- You don't want to be shooting through the Milky Way's own primary mass as nearby dust and gas will obstruct more distant objects.
- "Nearby" objects --- stars within the Milky Way, reasonably nearby galaxies --- might also tend to blow out the image. Though for the most part these end up being point sources. It's artefacts such as spikes which give the most obstruction.
In the case of the JWST, the fact that it's looking into the infrared means that it can see object which are literally invisible to Hubble regardless of how long the exposure.
The question of why space is black (or alternatively: why it's not uniformly light) is known as Olber's Paradox or "the dark-sky paradox", and dates back to the time of Keppler. Effectively: the universe has a finite age, and there is not an infinite number of stars (or other light sources) as one goes back in time.
There is a uniform illumination of the Universe that can be detected, as microwave radiation, known as the cosmic backgroud radiation. That occurs well below JWST's sensor range (0.6–28.3 μm), however, with a peak wavelength of about 1 mm.
Regarding Olber's paradox, would an infinite number of stars really imply the sky would be uniformly bright? Why couldn't (say) the following alternative explanations work?
(a) The universe is infinite, but has been (and will always be) stretching faster than would allow light from galaxies too far away to ever reach us.
(b) The universe is infinite and not even stretching, but there is enough (dark?) matter in it to eventually block any ray of light coming from infinitely far away.
I think (a) could work, but in (b), if matter were absorbing light for an infinite span of time, it would eventually heat up and glow itself. “Dark” matter does not directly interact with electromagnetism aka light, so wouldn’t block it.
There are a few factors involved AFAIU:
- You don't want to be shooting through the Milky Way's own primary mass as nearby dust and gas will obstruct more distant objects.
- "Nearby" objects --- stars within the Milky Way, reasonably nearby galaxies --- might also tend to blow out the image. Though for the most part these end up being point sources. It's artefacts such as spikes which give the most obstruction.
In the case of the JWST, the fact that it's looking into the infrared means that it can see object which are literally invisible to Hubble regardless of how long the exposure.
The question of why space is black (or alternatively: why it's not uniformly light) is known as Olber's Paradox or "the dark-sky paradox", and dates back to the time of Keppler. Effectively: the universe has a finite age, and there is not an infinite number of stars (or other light sources) as one goes back in time.
https://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/questions/que...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers%27_paradox
There is a uniform illumination of the Universe that can be detected, as microwave radiation, known as the cosmic backgroud radiation. That occurs well below JWST's sensor range (0.6–28.3 μm), however, with a peak wavelength of about 1 mm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_background_radiation