{"id":67346,"date":"2025-05-02T03:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T03:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/67346\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T03:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T03:18:11","slug":"webb-captures-a-167-megapixel-visual-feast-of-galaxies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/67346\/","title":{"rendered":"Webb Captures a 167-Megapixel ‘Visual Feast’ of Galaxies"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

The latest James Webb Space Telescope \u201cPicture of the Month\u201d exemplifies the $10 billion telescope\u2019s remarkable imaging capabilities. The photo shows cosmic objects ranging from stars inside the Milky Way to galaxies billions of light-years away. <\/p>\n

Within this one deep field photo are thousands of galaxies, the largest concentration of which is visible near the center of Webb\u2019s new image. The central cluster is an especially interesting one because the galaxies \u201cglow with white-gold light,\u201d as the European Space Agency (ESA) explains<\/a>. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe see this galaxy group as it appeared when the Universe was 6.5 billions years old, a little less than half the Universe\u2019s current age,\u201d the ESA continues. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis image presents a visual feast of galaxies. Take a moment to examine the galactic buffet: you\u2019ll see galaxies with delicate spiral arms or warped disks, galaxies with smooth, featureless faces, and even galaxies that are interacting or merging and have taken on an array of strange shapes,\u201d the ESA says. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

As a quick refresher, a galaxy\u2019s \u2014 or any cosmic object\u2019s \u2014 distance from Earth or a space telescope like Webb is measured in light-years. A light-year is the distance that light travels in one year \u2014 or approximately 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers). Now, take that practically inconceivable distance and consider that some light in Webb\u2019s new photo traveled for over seven billion years. Since Webb can capture such faint light, it sees objects as they were long before the Earth even formed. <\/p>\n

While the James Webb Space Telescope is an exceptional technological achievement and its instruments provide scientists with groundbreaking new data \u2014 and it takes beautiful photos<\/a> \u2014 it is not the perfect tool for every astronomical job. Sometimes, other older telescopes have unique advantages that Webb doesn\u2019t. <\/p>\n

\"AThis 100% crop provides a good sense of the scale of the image. The full-resolution version, available to download here<\/a>, is nearly one gigabyte large and 167 megapixels. <\/p>\n

Webb\u2019s latest shot looks at the most massive group in what scientists call the COSMOS-Web field. COSMOS stands for \u201cCosmic Evolution Survey.\u201d The survey relies upon several telescopes, including Webb, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the ESA\u2019s XMM-Newton space observatory, which captures X-ray data. <\/p>\n

Combining data of the COSMOS-Web field captured by Webb, Hubble, XMM-Newton, and the NASA Chandra X-ray observatory, scientists created a composite that shows deep space across many different wavelengths of light. The X-ray data, shown in purple, shows hot gas inside the galaxy group that would otherwise be invisible. <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Purple is not the only noteworthy color in either version of the new photo. The different colors of galaxies and stars reflect varying ages. Younger stars are bluer, while older ones are redder. As for galaxies, the redder it is, the more distant. <\/p>\n

Through COSMOS-Web, scientists hope to identify galaxies that formed during the epoch of reionization<\/a>, learn more about how the Universe\u2019s most massive galaxies formed, and understand more about the relationship between the mass of a galaxy\u2019s stars and its extended galactic halo. <\/p>\n

Image credits:<\/strong> ESA\/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Gozaliasl, A. Koekemoer, M. Franco, and the COSMOS-Web team <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The latest James Webb Space Telescope \u201cPicture of the Month\u201d exemplifies the $10 billion telescope\u2019s remarkable imaging capabilities.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[901,34088,26969,1161,1162,874,70,413,16,15,1164,34089],"class_list":{"0":"post-67346","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-astronomy","9":"tag-chandra","10":"tag-hubble","11":"tag-jameswebbspacetelescope","12":"tag-jwst","13":"tag-nasa","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-space","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-webb","19":"tag-xray"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114436079965612061","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}