Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

See a stunning field of galaxies captured by James Webb Space Telescope

By

Stunning images from the James Webb Space Telescope continue to entrance, and recently the researchers using the telescope have shared a gorgeous image of a field of galaxies as part of the Webb Picture of the Month collection.

The image shows a spattering of different background galaxies, while the foreground shows bright individual stars and a bright spiral galaxy at the bottom called LEDA 2046648. Located around a billion light-years from Earth, this galaxy is relatively much closer to us than the far-off background galaxies which is why it is so prominent in the image.

A crowded field of galaxies throngs this Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, along with bright stars crowned with Webb’s signature six-pointed diffraction spikes. The large spiral galaxy at the base of this image is accompanied by a profusion of smaller, more distant galaxies which range from fully-fledged spirals to mere bright smudges. Named LEDA 2046648, it is situated a little over a billion light-years from Earth, in the constellation Hercules.
A crowded field of galaxies throngs this Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, along with bright stars crowned with Webb’s signature six-pointed diffraction spikes. The large spiral galaxy at the base of this image is accompanied by a profusion of smaller, more distant galaxies which range from fully-fledged spirals to mere bright smudges. ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Martel

The data for this image were collected as part of the calibration process for some of Webb’s instruments. Although instruments used in space-based telescopes are calibrated as exactly as possible while they are still on the ground, it is still necessary to perform some more refinement once the telescope is launched and is in its final orbit. In the case of Webb, its instruments continued to be calibrated for several months after its launch.

Recommended Videos

To calibrate an instrument, one method that engineers use is to point the instrument at a known target to see what data they get back and whether this data conforms with the known features of that object. Another approach is to use several instruments simultaneously and to check whether the instruments’ data correspond correctly. Both approaches were done here, as this image was collected by the NIRCam instrument during the calibration of the NIRISS instrument.

Related

“This particular observation was part of the commissioning campaign for Webb’s Near-InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS),” the European Space Agency writes. “As well as performing science in its own right, NIRISS supports parallel observations with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). NIRCam captured this galaxy-studded image while NIRISS was observing the white dwarf WD1657+343, a well-studied star. This allows astronomers to interpret and compare data from the two different instruments, and to characterize the performance of NIRISS.”

The careful calibration of Webb’s instruments is allowing the telescope to view some of the most distant galaxies ever observed, meaning it can essentially look back in time to the formation of galaxies in the early universe.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
See the stunning image James Webb took to celebrate its first birthday
The first anniversary image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope displays star birth like it’s never been seen before, full of detailed, impressionistic texture. The subject is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. It is a relatively small, quiet stellar nursery, but you’d never know it from Webb’s chaotic close-up. Jets bursting from young stars crisscross the image, impacting the surrounding interstellar gas and lighting up molecular hydrogen, shown in red. Some stars display the telltale shadow of a circumstellar disc, the makings of future planetary systems.

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the first images shared from the James Webb Space Telescope, and to celebrate this milestone NASA has shared yet another gorgeous image of space captured by Webb.

The new image shows a star system called Rho Ophiuchi; a busy region where new stars are being born amide swirls of dust and gas. Located just 390 light-years away, Webb was able to capture the region in stunning detail using its NIRCam instrument.

Read more
Zoom into stunning James Webb image to see a galaxy formed 13.4 billion years ago
A section of a James Webb image showing a small part of the Extended Groth Strip, located between the Ursa Major and Boötes constellations.

One of the amazing things about the James Webb Space Telescope is the level of detail it is able to capture of very distant objects -- but it can be hard to picture what that means when the distances being considered are so large. Now, a new visualization gives a feel of just how detailed the data from the telescope is, by showing how it's possible to start with a stunning view of thousands of galaxies and zoom closer and closer in until you reach just one.

CEERS: Flight to Maisie's Galaxy

Read more
One galaxy, two views: see a comparison of images from Hubble and Webb
The peculiar galaxy NGC 3256 takes centre stage in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This distorted galaxy is the wreckage of a head-on collision between two spiral galaxies which likely occurred 500 million years ago, and it is studded with clumps of young stars which were formed as gas and dust from the two galaxies collided.

It might not seem obvious why astronomers need multiple different powerful space telescopes. Surely a more powerful telescope is better than a less powerful one? So why are there multiple different telescopes in orbit, either around Earth or around the sun?

The answer is to do with two main factors. One is the telescope's field of view, meaning how much of the sky it looks at. Some telescopes are useful for looking at large areas of the sky in less detail, working as survey telescopes to identify objects for further research or to look at the universe on a large scale -- like the recently launched Euclid mission. While others, like the Hubble Space Telescope, look at small areas of the sky in great detail, which is useful for studying particular objects.

Read more