slowly living

NASA’s Webb Delivers Deepest Infrared Image of Universe Yet

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail.

Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground.

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it. Webb’s NIRCam has brought those distant galaxies into sharp focus – they have tiny, faint structures that have never been seen before, including star clusters and diffuse features. Researchers will soon begin to learn more about the galaxies’ masses, ages, histories, and compositions, as Webb seeks the earliest galaxies in the universe.

The Pillars of Creation (Webb MIRI Image) by James Webb Space Telescope You can’t escape its clutches — just in time for #Halloween, the Pillars of Creation reach back out like a ghostly hand. (Some chilling perspective: these “fingers” are roughly 5 light-years long!)

The eerie landscape is captured this time by the James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI). Mid-infrared light specializes in detailing where dust and gas is. Here, the densest areas of dust are the darkest shades of gray, while the red region toward the top is where the dust is diffuse and cooler.

Don’t worry, the baby stars seen in Webb’s near-infrared view (released earlier this month) didn’t disappear. They’re just not easy to detect in mid-infrared! Instead, MIRI sees young stars with dusty cloaks — the crimson orbs at the pillars’ fringes — as well as scattered, aging blue stars.

Hauntingly beautiful in any light, we can’t help but return to the Pillars of Creation over and over. And each time, we deepen our understanding of this region. With this new MIRI image, astronomers now have higher resolution data in mid-infrared light than ever before. Learn more: www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2022/haunting-portrait-nasa-s-webb-reveals-dust-structure-in-pillars-of-creation

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI