NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken the deepest and best infrared image of the distant universe yet. Webb’s First Deep Field is galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. The galaxy cluster is teeming with thousands of galaxies and includes the faintest objects ever observed in infrared.
According to NASA, Webb’s image is approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length, a tiny sliver of the vast universe. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying more distant galaxies, including some seen when the universe was less than a billion years old.
This deep field, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest fields, which took weeks. And this is only the beginning. Researchers will continue to use Webb to take longer exposures, revealing more of our vast universe.
This image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. It also shows many more galaxies in front of and behind the cluster. Much more about this cluster will be revealed as researchers begin digging into Webb’s data. This field was also imaged by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), which observes mid-infrared light.
“You know what I’m most excited about?” Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA’s associate administrator for science, said during the event after the images were revealed. “There’s tens of thousands of scientists — and frankly, some of them just got born or are not even born — who are benefiting from this amazing telescope because it will be with us for decades.”
According to space.com, the Carina Nebula, one of the brightest and largest nebulas in the sky, is 7,600 light-years away from Earth. Spanning over 300 light-years across, it includes Eta Carinae, a dying supergiant star on the brink of a massive explosion, as well as Trumper 14, one of the youngest known clusters of star formation. A nebula is a stellar nursery, and Carina is a sprawling, active and sometimes violent one.
“ThAere’s so much going on here, it’s so beautiful,” Amber Straughn, an astrophysicist at NAS’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, said. “This stunning vista of the cosmic cliff of the Carina Nebula reveals new details about this vast stellar nursery. Today, for the first time, we’re seeing brand new stars that were previously completely hidden from our view.”
