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ESA has published a James Webb Space Telescope image in which a galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, bringing much more distant galaxies into view.
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The golden galaxies in the image belong to MACS J0454.1-0300, a cluster seen as it was when the Universe was about eight billion years old. Orange galaxies concentrated on one side of the picture are farther away and are not part of the cluster, ESA says. [1]
The cluster’s gravity bends and magnifies light from galaxies behind it, making some appear as arcs or as multiple images. Among them are repeated views of a galaxy group seen about two billion years after the Big Bang, and a galaxy seen about 800 million years after it. ESA says the group appears to be merging amid a burst of star formation. Astronomers have also identified bright knots corresponding to regions as small as five light-years across; some appear magnified more than 300 times. [1]
ESA says the Webb image reveals hundreds of galaxies missing from a Hubble image of the same cluster released in 2014, thanks to Webb’s greater sensitivity to their redder light. [1]
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