Webb Telescope Peers Back in Time Via New 'Deep Field' Image
The James Webb Space Telescope has recently captured some breathtaking shots of individual space bodies, from Neptune and its dreamy auroras to Jupiter's own massive light shows. But the telescope's latest image is going for depth, not focus. In a multi-layered snapshot shared by the European Space Agency (ESA) Tuesday, Webb peers back in time, bringing astronomers one step closer to examining so-called "Cosmic Dawn."
This period began when the universe was just a few million years old, and based on what astronomers currently know, that's when the version of the universe we observe today began to take shape. Cosmic Dawn should have quite a bit to say about why our stellar setting is the way it is, making it a vital area of study for space scientists. But imaging Cosmic Dawn is easier said than done, and theory can only go so far.
Tuesday's Webb image is as good a starting point as any. The image depicts Abell S1063, a behemoth galaxy cluster 4.5 billion light-years from Earth. While the Hubble Space Telescope captured Abell S1063 nine years ago, the galaxy cluster holds too much potential to be used just once: Its size bends the light of distant galaxies positioned "behind" it, allowing it to serve as a strong gravitational lens.
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Atek, M. Zamani
In an effort to pick up where Hubble left off, Webb's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) gazed at Abell S1063 and its surroundings. A total of 120 observation hours allowed Webb to take nine snapshots at various near-infrared wavelengths. Stacked together, these snapshots offer what the ESA calls "Webb's deepest gaze on a single target to date."
While Abell S1063 dominates the image, the warped streaks of light are gravitational lensing in action. The streaks originate from "faint galaxies from the universe's distant pass," as the ESA puts it, lending scientists the potential to develop our understanding of the emergence of the first galaxies." And on that front, research has already begun. According to two preprint papers published on the arXiv, an international team of astrophysicists has used Webb's data to identify a host of candidate galaxies that could have formed as early as 200 million years after the Big Bang. They've even spotted signs of the first stars in the universe.
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