Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, K. Iyer (Columbia U), Image processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Thousands of glimmering galaxies are bound together by their own gravity, making up a massive cluster formally classified as MACS J1423.

The largest bright white oval is a supergiant elliptical galaxy and the dominant member of this galaxy cluster. The galaxy cluster acts like a lens, magnifying and distorting the light of objects that lie well behind it, an effect known as gravitational lensing that has big research benefits. Astronomers can study lensed galaxies in detail, like the Firefly Sparkle galaxy.

This 2023 image is from the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera). Researchers used Webb to survey the same field the Hubble Space Telescope imaged in 2010. Due to its specialization in high-resolution near-infrared imagery, Webb was able to show researchers many more galaxies in far more detail.

Webb’s observation is part of its CAnadian NIRISS Unbiased Cluster Survey (CANUCS), a follow up to the Cluster Lensing And Supernova survey with Hubble (CLASH) program, which used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).

Provider: Space Telescope Science Institute

Image Source: https://webbtelescope.org/contents/news-releases/2024/news-2024-116

Curator: STScI, Baltimore, MD, USA

Image Use Policy: https://www.stsci.edu/copyright