The James Webb Space Telescope has reimaged a site in space that is home to galaxies from the early universe, one of the most famous captures by its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.
The region of space captured by James Webb is located in the southern constellation of Fornax (the Furnace), and is known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). It is home to around 10,000 galaxies that emerged just 800 million years after the Big Bang.
In 2003, when Hubble aimed its sensors at the same corner of the universe, it was the most distant galaxy images ever taken. Those responsible for the telescope at the time even said that the record was impossible to beat, until Webb arrived and ended everything.
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In the image published on Thursday, the 13th, the JWST was able to see the HUDF at similar depths to Hubble but with only a tenth of the exposure time of its predecessor. While Hubble took 11.3 days to capture the faint and distant light of galaxies, James Webb did it in just 20 hours, in addition to showing young galaxies that had not been observed before.
The fact that we see hot, ionized gas tells us exactly where stars are being born in these galaxies. We can now separate these areas from where stars already existed. This information is very important because, billions of years later, we don’t know exactly how the galaxies became the way they are today.
Michael Maseda, astronomer, in a statement
The image was taken by James Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) infrared wave sensor and has helped scientists understand the early universe. This period when the first stars and galaxies appeared was known as the era of reionization.
The first galaxies in the universe were not as well defined as they are today, with well-defined spiral or elliptical shapes. In this part of the universe captured by telescopes, astronomers have already seen a toothpick-shaped galaxy, and now with JWST other oddities can be revealed.
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