Webb is an infrared telescope, so they’re mapping infrared wavelengths up to visible wavelengths (== colors) so we can see them. If we made a picture of what Webb “sees” at the actual IR frequencies, it would just be a black rectangle, since our eyes don’t see infrared.
Exactly.
They spent billions to create pages for a NASA coloring book, hired artists to color their pictures and the released them to the public.
At least the Apollo mission got us Tang and moon rocks.
Go look at any unmodified picture of deep space, you will see little trace of color. Stars, nebula, galaxies all fade to dim white spots with little color.
By setting ‘filters’ on the images, they can see the way things move, especially in those dramatic planetary nebulas. They can also pick spots to get doppler information from for detailed data on which way and how fast things are moving.
I certainly see the turbulence in a nebula, and read the storm in my mind.
All of these are, of course, digital images, not film. Being digital makes it easier to apply tints to frequencies that we cannot see, but give us better information on what’s there. Seeing different colors for the molecules and atoms, and temperatures, makes it more real, and accurate, for the non-professional stargazers like me.