NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has delivered the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe so far, according to the NASA website.
NASA says Webb’s image is approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length, a tiny sliver of the vast universe.
This deep field, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest fields, which took weeks, NASA says.
According to NASA, this image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago, with many more galaxies in front of and behind the cluster.
US President Joe Biden unveiled the image, known as Webb’s First Deep Field, during a White House event Monday, July 11.
