James Webb Telescope - Deep Field Image

by Ram Vasudev

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James Webb Telescope - Deep Field Image

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Ram Vasudev

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This is a digitally enhanced version of a Deep Field Image acquired by NASA’s James Webb Telescope.

I have considerably modified the original raw image (which is in the public-domain) to enhance the colors, beauty, balance and luminosity, in order to provide you a breathtaking, high quality, fine art print through this website.

There are thousands of galaxies in this image acquired at near-infrared wavelengths (800-2500 nanometers). The fine details in this image of the galaxy cluster SMACS0723 from the Webb Telescope is made possible by combining the high-resolution capability of the instrument with a natural phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

The details in such images will help us measure ages and masses of star clusters in distant galaxies. These will allow us to understand how new galaxies in the early universe interacted and merged with each other, and how they grew and evolved into larger spirals. The early universe formed soon after the big bang, about 13.8 billion years ago. The Webb Telescope will be able to detect light from galaxies formed as far as 13.5 billion years ago, not much later than the big bang.

The light detected by Webb is at infrared wavelengths, not visible to our eyes. Therefore, in order to aid us understand the infrared colors in the Webb image, the colors in the image shown here (red, blue, etc.) here are “false colors.” These are meant to qualitatively represent how far the individual galaxies are. The ones in red are further away because they are moving faster away from us, and the light from them is red-shifted (i.e., shifted to longer wavelengths) by the well-understood Doppler effect. The ones in yellow or blue are not moving as fast and are closer to us.

Incidentally, the resolution of the James Webb Telescope is a hundred times better than of the Hubble Telescope. Also, the Webb Telescope works at infrared wavelengths, whereas the Hubble detects light at visible wavelengths (and cannot go back as far back in time as Webb). See my Science-Space-Technology collection for an image of and a deep field image captured by the Hubble instrument.

Now, here is some food for thought from Huck Finn!
“It's lovely to live on a raft. We had the sky, up there, all speckled with stars, and we used to lay on our backs and look up at them, and discuss about whether they was made, or only just happened- Jim he allowed they was made, but I allowed they happened; I judged it would have took too long to make so many.” – Mark Twain, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Chapter 19 (1885)

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© Ram Vasudev
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July 15th, 2022

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