

The light from those galaxies, magnified into visibility by the gravitational field of the cluster, originated more than 13 billion years ago. The image, of a distant star cluster called SMACS 0723, revealed the presence of still more-distant galaxies spilled across the sky. President Biden offered a preview on Monday afternoon when he introduced what NASA officials and astronomers hailed as the deepest image yet taken of the cosmos, a mark that will probably be passed before the week is done as more data spews forth from NASA’s computers. The photo below, captured by Webb, was one of the first five photos released by the telescope team earlier this summer and is perhaps the most visually striking.Ĭhandra’s data of the what are also referred to as the “Cosmic Cliffs” appears pink and reveals over a dozen individual X-ray sources.John Mather, the senior project scientist on Webb and a Nobel Prize laureate for his work on the Big Bang, speaking to reporters at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., on Tuesday. The Carina Nebula is one of the brightest and largest nebulae in the night sky, located about 7,600 light-years away in the southern constellation of Carina. “Invisible dark matter makes up an even larger fraction of the total mass in the cluster.” The Carina Nebula In this image, the Chandra data (blue) reveals gas with temperatures of tens of millions of degrees, possessing a total mass of about 100 trillion times that of the Sun, several times higher than the mass of all the galaxies in the cluster,” NASA says. “As some of the largest structures in the universe, are filled with vast reservoirs of superheated gas that is seen only in X-ray light.

The light captured by Webb in this photo has traveled for more than 13 billion years. Not only is the photo the first from Webb to be seen by the public, it is also the highest resolution photo of deep space that has ever been taken.
#Nasa picture of the day star clusters full#
It was actually the first photo captured by the Webb telescope ever shared as it was the preview photo President Joe Biden teased the day before the full release of the first five photos captured by the advanced observatory. SMACS 0723.3–7327, located about 4.2 billion light-years away, is a galaxy cluster that plays host to hundreds of individual galaxies.
#Nasa picture of the day star clusters plus#
“Webb’s infrared view (red, orange, yellow, green, blue) shows the Cartwheel galaxy plus two smaller companion galaxies - not part of the collision - against a backdrop of many more distant galactic cousins.” Cartwheel Galaxy, Composite SMACS 0723.3–7327 “X-rays seen by Chandra (blue and purple) come from superheated gas, individual exploded stars, and neutron stars, and black holes pulling material from companion stars,” NASA explains. Webb’s photo is a composite image created from two of its cameras: the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and can be seen below: It is made up of two rings: a bright inner ring and a colorful outer ring, both of which expand outward from the center of the shockwave in what the Webb team describes looks like a shockwave. Shortly after the publication of Stephen’s Quintet and four other targets, NASA released the Webb telescope’s photo of the Cartwheel Galaxy, which astronomers say was formed as the result of a high-speed collision that occurred about 400 million years ago. This new composite also includes infrared data from NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope (red, green, blue).” The Cartwheel Galaxy “The Chandra data (light blue) of this system has uncovered a shock wave that heats gas to tens of millions of degrees, as one of the galaxies passes through the others at speeds of around 2 million miles per hour. Infrared data from the Spitzer Space telescope, now retired, is included in the below composite.
