The European Space Agency (ESA) has released a stunning image taken by the James Webb Telescope (JWST), which took 120 hours to obtain. It shows countless galaxies, the most distant of which existed during the cosmic dawn.
Abell S1063 dominates the center of the image. It is a huge cluster of galaxies located 4.5 billion light-years from Earth toward the constellation Grus. On a closer look, you can see that it is surrounded by glowing streaks of light. These curved arcs are the real object of interest to scientists.
The fact is that Abell S1063 is so massive that its gravity acts as a powerful lens. It amplifies the light from more distant galaxies, which bends around the cluster, creating arcs. Though the images are warped, they are bright enough to be studied. Thanks to this effect, astronomers are able to study objects at the very edge of the visible Universe. Under normal circumstances, even the power of the JWST wouldn’t have been enough to see them.
The image was acquired using NIRCam mounted on JWST. It was made up of nine separate images taken at different wavelengths. In total, obtaining them required 120 hours of observation. To date, this is the “deepest” image taken by JWST in its 2.5 years of operation.
The study of extremely distant galaxies detected by the gravitational lensing effect has the potential to improve our understanding of how the Universe originated and evolved and how the first star systems appeared in it. Analysis of JWST data has already found candidates for galaxies that existed just 200 million years after the Big Bang, as well as hints of the elusive population of the first supergiant stars.
Recall that recently James Webb broke its own record and photographed the most distant galaxy in the Universe.
According to Esawebb
