Scientists using the James Webb space telescope are seeing the “seeds God has sown in the universe”, the Pope has said, saying it was “an exciting time to be an astronomer”.

He said the telescope revealed wonders of which the authors of biblical scriptures could only dream, and its images of the oldest and most distant galaxies in the cosmos filled people with a sense of “mysterious joy”.

The Pope held an audience for young astronomers attending a summer school at the Vatican Observatory outside Rome this week, focusing on the telescope’s work.

He told them it was a “truly remarkable instrument” that meant that “for the first time, we are able to peer deeply into the atmosphere of exoplanets where life may be developing and study the nebulae where planetary systems themselves are forming”.

The telescope, which was launched on Christmas Day in 2021, orbits the sun at a fixed distance a million miles from Earth. It has been able to detect galaxies that formed more than 13.5 billion years ago, only 290 million years after the universe was born in the Big Bang. It has also detected hints of possible alien life in the atmospheres of distant planets. The Pope said: “The authors of sacred scriptures, writing so many centuries ago, did not have the benefit of this privilege. Yet their poetic and religious imagination pondered what the moment of creation must have been like.”• What you don’t know about the new Pope, by Vatican insidersHe quoted a passage from the Book of Baruch, which is seen as part of the Old Testament by Catholics but not by Protestants, which reads: “The stars shone in their watches and rejoiced; and their Creator called them and they said, ‘Here we are!’, shining with gladness for him who made them.”He added: “In our own day, do not the James Webb images also fill us with wonder, and indeed a mysterious joy, as we contemplate their sublime beauty?”The star cluster NGC 602, near the outskirts of the small magellanic cloud, a satellite galaxy about 200,000 light years from EarthESA/WEBB, NASA & CSA, P. ZEIDLERA galaxy nicknamed the Firefly Sparkle, gleaming with ten star clustersNASA/PAThe most detailed image of planetary nebula to date — NGC 1514NASA/ESAThe Horsehead NebulaNASA/APA small star-forming region in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complexNASAHe told attendees of the summer school near Lake Albano, an hour’s train ride southeast of Rome: “Do not hesitate to share the joy and amazement born of your contemplation of the ‘seeds’ that, in the words of St Augustine, God has sown in the harmony of the universe. The more joy you share, the more joy you create, and in this way, through your pursuit of knowledge, each of you can contribute to building a more peaceful and just world.”He added that “surely this must be an exciting time to be an astronomer”, noting the telescope had captured “the ancient light of distant galaxies, which speaks of the very beginning of our universe”. He told the astronomers their work “is meant to benefit us all”, and asked them to “be generous in sharing what you learn and what you experience”.• ‘Karaoke with the Pope’: Leo’s singing inspires wave of online tutorialsThe Vatican has spent years trying to repair its scientific reputation after prosecuting Galileo Galilei in the 17th century and placing him under house arrest after he published works agreeing with the Copernican view that the Earth orbits the sun, rather than vice versa.Guy Consolmagno, the Vatican’s chief astronomerSTEPHANIE GENGOTTI FOR THE TIMESThe Times visited the Vatican Observatory last year to meet its director, Brother Guy Consolmagno, a noted meteorite expert. He said the Catholic church had been a world-leading authority on astronomy for centuries before the Galileo affair, noting that the modern Gregorian calendar was devised by the Vatican’s astronomers, who corrected errors in the Julian calendar devised by the Romans. Much of the scientific research conducted in medieval Europe took place at Catholic universities, he said. Consolmagno met the Pope at the observatory this week and said: “Our interaction was delightful but brief. Rightly, he spent most of his time chatting with the students. I am delighted he granted us a private audience. His eloquent words, of course, speak for themselves.”