Discovery
Webb telescope captures 'deepest' view of ancient galaxies to date
At the bright center of the new image is a massive cluster of galaxies called Abell S1063, which is 4.5 billion light years from Earth.
![The galaxy cluster Abell S1063 is seen at the center of this new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb space telescope picture. This behemoth collection of galaxies, lying 4.5 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Grus (the Crane), dominates the scene. Looking more closely, this dense collection of heavy galaxies is surrounded by glowing streaks of light, and these warped arcs are the true object of scientists' interest: faint galaxies from the Universe's distant past. [ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Atek, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)]](/gc8/images/2025/05/29/50593-webb_glimpses_the_distant_past-370_237.webp)
By Blueshift and AFP |
The James Webb space telescope's deepest view of a single target yet depicts spinning arcs of light that are galaxies from the Universe's distant past, the European Space Agency (ESA) said May 27.
The new image took the world's most powerful telescope more than 120 hours to capture, making it the longest Webb has ever focused on a single target.
It is "Webb's deepest gaze on a single target to date," the ESA said in a statement, making the image one of the deepest ever captured of the cosmos.
At the bright center of the image is a massive cluster of galaxies called Abell S1063, which is 4.5 billion light years from Earth.
But it is not the true target.
Such huge celestial objects can bend the light of things behind them, creating a kind of magnifying glass called a gravitational lens.
Therefore, the "warped arcs" spinning around Abell S1063 are what really interest scientists, the ESA said in a statement.
Abell S1063 was previously observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's Frontier Fields program.
"It features a strong gravitational lens: the galaxy cluster is so massive that the light of distant galaxies aligned behind it is bent around it, creating the warped arcs," the ESA said.
"The resulting images, albeit distorted, are both bright and magnified -- enough to be observed and studied," it said, noting that Hubble's goal was to use the galaxy cluster as a magnifying glass to investigate the early Universe.
Looking back to birth of Universe
Because looking into distant space means looking back in time, scientists hope to learn how the first galaxies formed during a period known as the Cosmic Dawn, when the Universe was only a few million years old.
"The new imagery from Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) takes this quest even further back in time," the ESA said.
The image includes nine separate shots of different near-infrared wavelengths of light, the ESA said.
"Focusing such observing power on a massive gravitational lens, like Abell S1063, therefore has the potential to reveal some of the very first galaxies formed in the early Universe."
Since coming online in 2022, the Webb telescope has ushered in a new era of scientific breakthroughs.
It has revealed that galaxies in the early Universe are far bigger than scientists expected, leading some to suspect there might be something wrong with our understanding of the cosmos.