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English: NOTEː A very minor crop has been made to the upper top of the original JWST image ( https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/main_image_deep_field_smacs0723-5mb.jpg ) in order to BETTER COMPARE this James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) image with the equivalent Hubble Space Telescope (HST) image ( File:NASA-HubbleSpaceTelescope-DeepField-2017.jpg ) - COMPARISONS OF THESE TWO IMAGES have been added to Wikipedia articles including at the following →
  1. en:James Webb Space Telescope#Scientific results
  2. en:Webb's First Deep Field#Comparison with the Hubble Space Telescope
  3. en:Galaxy cluster#Gallery
  4. en:SMACS J0723.3–7327
  5. en:List of deep fields
  6. en:First light (astronomy)#Historical examples

hope this helps in some way - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy ǃǃ ̴̴– Drbogdan (talk) 11:51, 18 July 2022 (UTC)


Jul 12, 2022 - NASA’s Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe so far. Webb’s First Deep Field is galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, and it is teeming with thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared.

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, with 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.

Webb’s NIRCam has brought distant galaxies into sharp focus – they have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features.

Light from these galaxies took billions of years to reach us. We are looking back in time to within a billion years after the big bang when viewing the youngest galaxies in this field. The light was stretched by the expansion of the universe to infrared wavelengths that Webb was designed to observe. Researchers will soon begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions.

Other features include the prominent arcs in this field. The powerful gravitational field of a galaxy cluster can bend the light rays from more distant galaxies behind it, just as a magnifying glass bends and warps images. Stars are also captured with prominent diffraction spikes, as they appear brighter at shorter wavelengths.

Webb’s MIRI image offers a kaleidoscope of colors and highlights where the dust is – a major ingredient for star formation, and ultimately life itself. Blue galaxies contain stars, but very little dust. The red objects in this field are enshrouded in thick layers of dust. Green galaxies are populated with hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds. Researchers will be able to use data like these to understand how galaxies form, grow, and merge with each other, and in some cases why they stop forming stars altogether.

In addition to taking images, two of Webb’s instruments also obtained spectra – data that reveal objects’ physical and chemical properties that will help researchers identify many more details about distant galaxies in this field. Webb’s Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) microshutter array observed 48 individual galaxies at the same time – a new technology used for the first time in space – returning a full suite of details about each. The data revealed light from one galaxy that traveled for 13.1 billion years before Webb’s mirrors captured it. NIRSpec data also demonstrate how detailed galaxy spectra will be with Webb observations.

Finally, Webb’s Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) used Wide-Field Slitless Spectroscopy to capture spectra of all the objects in the entire field of view at once. Among the results, it proves that one of the galaxies has a mirror image.

SMACS 0723 can be viewed near the constellation Volans in the southern sky.
Date
Source https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/035/01G7DCWB7137MYJ05CSH1Q5Z1Z
Author NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

Licensing

Public domain This file is in the public domain because it was created by NASA, ESA and CSA. NASA Webb material is copyright-free and may be freely used as in the public domain without fee, on the condition that only NASA, STScI, and/or ESA/CSA is credited as the source of the material. This license does not apply if source material from other organizations is in use.
The material was created for NASA by Space Telescope Science Institute under Contract NAS5-03127. Copyright statement at webbtelescope.org.
For material created by the European Space Agency on the esawebb.org site, use the {{ESA-Webb}} tag.

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NASA - JWST - First Deep Field - July 12, 2022 - PNG Version

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