facebook pixel
‘Cause I’m just a teenage dustbag, baby ⁣ ⁣ NASAWebb has captured a new image of a "teenage galactic cluster" known as El Gordo — and it's revealing distant and dusty objects never before seen. El Gordo existed when the universe was 6.2 billion years old which means it’s in its teens (and knows everything). ⁣ ⁣ It’s the most massive cluster of its era and doubles as a natural magnifying glass through a phenomena called gravitational lensing – its powerful gravity bends and distorts light of objects lying behind it, much like an eyeglass lens. ⁣ ⁣ In the second image, take a closer look at two of the background galaxies magnified by El Gordo:⁣ - The long thin line in Box A is known as La Flaca. Webb used its extreme infrared sensitivity to spot a red giant star within, the first star of this type observed beyond 1 billion light-years from Earth.⁣ - The bright arc in Box B is El Anzuelo, or The Fishhook. Light from this galaxy took 10.6 billion years to reach Earth.⁣ ⁣ Image descriptions...

 1.3m

 2.8k

    Suggested Credits
    Tags, Events, and Projects