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James Webb space telescope

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Maggie Aderin explores stunning images of the universe captured by JWST

Space scientist Maggie Aderin tells Karmela Padavic-Callaghan about these stunning photographs from the James Webb Space Telescope, which feature in her new book

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Dark Matter distribution

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The best map of dark matter has revealed never-before-seen structures

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little red dots

Space

Distant ‘little red dot’ galaxies may contain baby black holes

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Space

Astronomers may have glimpsed evidence of the biggest stars ever seen

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Space

We may have found a surprisingly nearby cluster of primordial stars

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Space

New moon discovered orbiting Uranus is its smallest one

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The eye is first drawn, in this new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month, to the central mega-monster that is galaxy cluster Abell S1063. 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. Abell S1063 was previously observed by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope???s Frontier Fields programme. It is 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 that we see here. Like a glass lens, it focuses the light from these faraway galaxies. The resulting images, albeit distorted, are both bright and magnified ??? enough to be observed and studied. This was the aim of Hubble???s observations, using the galaxy cluster as a magnifying glass to investigate the early Universe. The new imagery from Webb???s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) takes this quest even further back in time. This image showcases an incredible forest of lensing arcs around Abell S1063, which reveal distorted background galaxies at a range of cosmic distances, along with a multitude of faint galaxies and previously unseen features. This image is what???s known as a deep field ??? a long exposure of a single area of the sky, collecting as much light as possible to draw out the most faint and distant galaxies that don???t appear in ordinary images. With 9 separate snapshots of different near-infrared wavelengths of light, totalling around 120 hours of observing time and aided by the magnifying effect of gravitational lensing, this is Webb???s deepest gaze on a single target to date. Focusing such observing power on a massive gravitational lens, like Abell S1063, therefore h

Space

Peer into the early universe as light bends around huge galaxy cluster

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This new Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features an astounding number of galaxies. The objects in this frame span an incredible range of distances, from stars within our own Milky Way, marked by diffraction spikes, to galaxies billions of light-years away.?? The star of this image is a group of galaxies, the largest concentration of which can be found just below the centre of this image. These galaxies glow with white-gold light. We see this galaxy group as it appeared when the Universe was 6.5 billion years old, a little less than half the Universe???s current age. More than half of the galaxies in our Universe belong to galaxy groups like the one pictured here. Studying galaxy groups is critical for understanding how individual galaxies link up to form galaxy clusters, the largest gravitationally bound structures in the Universe. Belonging to a galaxy group can also alter the course of a galaxy???s evolution through mergers and gravitational interactions. The galaxy group pictured here is the most massive group in what???s called the COSMOS-Web field. COSMOS stands for Cosmic Evolution Survey. This survey has enlisted several telescopes, including Webb, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, and ESA???s XMM-Newton space observatory to gaze deeply at a single patch of sky.?? COSMOS-Web aims to understand how massive structures like galaxy clusters came to be. Webb???s infrared capabilities and sensitive instruments have pushed the search for galaxy groups farther back into cosmic history, revealing galaxy groups as far back as when the Universe was only 1.9 billion years old ??? just 14% of its current age. This image combines infrared data from Webb???s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) instrument with further infrared observations from the Hubble Space Telescope. The X-ray data, shown in purple, highlights the presence of hot gas concentrated within the X-ray galaxy group. These X-ray data come from ESA???s XMM-Newton space observ

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Colourful group of galaxies offers peek into history of the universe

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Space

Asteroid 2024 YR4 could still hit the moon, JWST observations reveal

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Giant Milky Way-like galaxy formed unusually soon after the big bang

The Big Wheel, discovered using the James Webb Space Telescope, formed just 2 billion years after the big bang - surprisingly early for a spiral galaxy of a similar size to our Milky Way

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See a shimmering hourglass-shaped star system in exquisite detail

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Space

James Webb captures a beautiful smattering of blue stars

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Space

2024 review: Stunning JWST images that reveal the beauty of space

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Space

10 stunning James Webb Space Telescope images show the beauty of space

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