NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the farthest and sharpest infrared image of the universe to date.
The color image of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 impresses with its detail. In it thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever seen in the infrared spectrum – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. “Mr. President, if you were to put a grain of sand on the tip of your outstretched hand, that’s the part of the Universe you see, a nugget of it,” NASA chief Bill Nelson pointedly told the US President during the briefing. .
The deep field, recorded by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a complex process consisting of images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours – reaching depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the deepest fields that the Hubble Space Telescope has arrived, a process that took weeks.
The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this cluster of galaxies acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it, which are believed to be the first to form after the Big Bang. Researchers will soon begin to learn more about the masses, ages, histories and compositions of galaxies as James Webb searches for the first galaxies in the universe.
The image is among the first color images sent back to Earth by the most powerful telescope. The full suite will be released on Tuesday, July 12 in the afternoon during a NASA livestream.
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