NASA’s groundbreaking James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has once again made headlines with its newest capture of a distant patch of sky known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF). Located in the southern constellation Fornax, HUDF contains at least 10,000 galaxies dating back to just 800 million years after the Big Bang, offering astronomers a glimpse into the formation of the very first galaxies.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope first observed the HUDF in 2003, capturing the first images of galaxies at the farthest distances ever known. However, JWST’s newest image captures the same region at similar depths as its predecessor, but in just one-tenth of the time it took Hubble to capture the same image.
The latest image was captured by JWST’s powerful Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) instrument, which snapped the photo in infrared wavelengths. Astronomers believe that the image will help piece together the universe’s history in the first billion years after the Big Bang, which is when the first cohort of stars were born, known as the reionization era.
What’s even more exciting about the newest JWST image is that it’s revealing young galaxies that were not seen previously. Astronomers are now able to see hot, ionized gas, which gives insight into where stars are being born in these galaxies. This new piece of information is important because it helps to answer questions about how galaxies evolved into what they are today.
This image is just the beginning of what astronomers hope to uncover with JWST’s cutting-edge technology. As JWST continues to observe the universe, it has the potential to reveal even more exciting discoveries about the universe’s origins and how it has evolved over time.
