Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

See distant galaxies sparkling in James Webb’s biggest image yet

Georgina Torbet
By

The wonders of the universe are on full display once again thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope. A team from a Webb survey program has released the largest Webb image yet, showing a dazzling array of galaxies spread across the background of space.

The image is from the CEERS or Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science program, which surveys a patch of the sky near the handle of the Big Dipper constellation. The aim of the survey is to search for extremely distant galaxies by looking at a generally dim area of the sky that is far away from bright light sources, such as the plane of the solar system and the center of the Milky Way. By looking at this dim area, Webb can see very faint distant galaxies as they aren’t blotted out by nearer bright light sources.

Related Videos
This image, from a patch of sky near the handle of the Big Dipper, is part of a larger mosaic taken with the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the James Webb Space Telescope. This is one of the first images obtained by the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS) collaboration.
This image, from a patch of sky near the handle of the Big Dipper, is part of a larger mosaic taken with the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the James Webb Space Telescope. This is one of the first images obtained by the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS) collaboration. NASA/STScI/CEERS/TACC/S. Finkelstein/M. Bagley/Z. Levay

“I have been waiting so long to share this, and it is finally time!” researcher Rebecca Larson cheerfully announced on Twitter. “Do you want to see THE BIGGEST IMAGE #JWST has taken of galaxies so far?! Our color mosaic image from @ceers_jwst is ready, and there are SO MANY GALAXIES in it!”

“Check out our amazing color image,” lead researcher Steve Finkelstein chimed in as well. “Download the high-res version and lose yourself in all the galaxies!”

As the researchers suggest, you should go to the CEERS website to see the high-resolution image in all its incredible detail. This is Webb’s largest survey area yet and consists of four images of the 10 total planned for the survey, taken using Webb’s NIRCam instrument in June 2022. More observations are scheduled for later this year.

This image—a mosaic of 690 individual frames taken with the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the James Webb Space Telescope—covers an area of sky about eight times as large as Webb’s First Deep Field Image released on July 12. It’s from a patch of sky near the handle of the Big Dipper. This is one of the first images obtained by the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS) collaboration.
This image — a mosaic of 690 individual frames taken with the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) on the James Webb Space Telescope — covers an area of sky about eight times as large as Webb’s First Deep Field Image released on July 12. It’s from a patch of sky near the handle of the Big Dipper. This is one of the first images obtained by the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS) collaboration. NASA/STScI/CEERS/TACC/S. Finkelstein/M. Bagley/Z. Levay

As well as bringing us stunning images to look at, such surveys play an important role in identifying interesting targets for follow-up study. Included in this mosaic are objects like a set of interacting galaxies dubbed the “Space Kraken,” a supernova spotted in a pair of interacting galaxies, and an extremely distant galaxy named after Finkelstein’s daughter Maisie.

Further surveys are to come with Webb once CEERS wraps up, including the Next Generation Deep Extragalactic Exploratory Survey, or NGDEEP, and the James Webb Space Telescope Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or JADES.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
A small, fuzzy dwarf galaxy in our neighborhood captured by Hubble
UGCA 307 hangs against an irregular backdrop of distant galaxies in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The small galaxy consists of a diffuse band of stars containing red bubbles of gas that mark regions of recent star formation, and lies roughly 26 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Corvus. Appearing as just a small patch of stars, UGCA 307 is a diminutive dwarf galaxy without a defined structure — resembling nothing more than a hazy patch of passing cloud.

This week's image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a galaxy in our backyard, cosmically speaking, taken as part of a project to image nearby galaxies. Galaxy UGCA 307 is located 26 million light-years away in the constellation of Corvus, or The Crow, a small constellation visible from the southern hemisphere which was documented as far back as 1,000 years BCE.

There is just a small cluster of stars within this galaxy, as it is a type called a dwarf galaxy. These are defined as galaxies with just a few billion stars, which sounds like a lot until you compare it to the hundreds of billions of stars that are found in our galaxy, the Milky Way.

Read more
NASA picks a commercial partner to visit the far side of the moon
Rendering of Firefly’s Blue Ghost lunar lander delivering NASA’s LuSEE-Night radio telescope to the far side of the Moon.

NASA has big plans for the moon. From sending the first crewed mission to land on its surface in 50 years to setting up a space station in orbit, the agency has multiple missions planned for exploring our planet's satellite. These include partnerships with a number of private companies as well as NASA-developed projects, such as under the Commercial Lunar Payload Services, or CLPS, program which will contract out the transportation of small payloads to the moon.

This week, NASA announced it has selected the company Firefly Aerospace to develop a commercial lander for the far side of the moon. The lander, called Blue Ghost, will be used to deliver several NASA payloads to the moon, including a radio observation mission which is placed on the far side of the moon to minimize the radio noise coming from Earth. This natural radio quiet zone will let the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment-Night (LuSEE-Night) telescope detect faint radio waves from an early period of the universe known as the cosmic dark ages.

Read more
How to watch NASA unveil its next-generation spacesuit
An artist's illustration showing astronauts on the moon.

NASA Live: Official Stream of NASA TV

NASA is about to unveil a prototype of the all-new spacesuit that astronauts will wear when they set foot on the moon in the highly anticipated Artemis III mission, which is currently slated for 2025.

Read more