Astronomers have revealed the latest deep-field image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope that contains never-before-seen details in a region of space known as Pandora’s Cluster (Abell 2744). Webb’s view shows three clusters of galaxies—already massive—merging to form a megacluster. The combined mass of galaxy clusters creates a strong gravitational lens, a natural magnifying effect of gravity that allows the observation of much more distant galaxies in the early universe using the cluster as a magnifying glass.
Only the central core of Pandora has previously been studied in detail by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. By combining Webb’s powerful infrared instruments with a wide mosaic view of different lensing regions in the region, astronomers aimed to achieve a balance of width and depth that will open a new frontier in the study of cosmology and galaxy evolution.
Ancient myth of Pandora
University of Pittsburgh astronomer Rachel Bezanson in Pennsylvania, co-investigator Ultradeep NIRSpec and NIRCam Observations before the Epoch of Reionization” (UNCOVER) program to study the region says “The ancient myth of Pandora is about human curiosity and discovery that separates the past from the future, which I think is a fitting connection to the new realms of space that Webb is opening up, including this deep image of Pandora’s cluster,”.
Lensed galaxies
The new view of Pandora’s Cluster combines four Webb images into one panoramic image that shows roughly 50,000 sources of near-infrared light. “When the images of Pandora’s Cluster first came from Webb, we were honestly quite star struck,” Bezanson said. “There was so much detail in the foreground cluster and so many distant lensed galaxies that I got lost in the image. Webb exceeded our expectations.”
In addition to magnification, gravitational lensing also distorts the appearance of distant galaxies, making them look very different from those in the foreground. The “lens” of the galaxy cluster is so massive that it distorts the structure of the universe itself, enough so that light from distant galaxies passing through this warped space also takes on a warped appearance.
UNCOVER program
Astronomer Ivo Labbe of Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, co-principal investigator of the UNCOVER program, said that in the lower right lens core of the Webb image, which was never taken by Hubble, Webb revealed hundreds of distant galaxies that appear as faint arc lines in the image . Zooming in on the region reveals more and more of them.
“Pandora’s Cluster, as imaged by Webb, shows us a stronger, wider, deeper and better lens than we’ve ever seen,” Labbe said. “My first reaction to the image was that it was so beautiful it looked like a simulation of the formation of a galaxy. We had to remind ourselves that this was real data, and now we are working in a new era of astronomy.”
Science studies with Webb’s rich data sets
The UNCOVER team used Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) to capture the cluster with exposures lasting 4-6 hours, for a total of about 30 hours of observing time. The next step is to carefully sift through the imaging data and select galaxies for follow-up observations with the Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), which will provide accurate distance measurements along with other detailed information about the composition of the galaxy’s lenses and provide new information. insights into the early era of galaxy accretion and evolution. The UNCOVER team expects to make these NIRSpec observations in the summer of 2023.
In the meantime, all of the NIRCam photometric data has been released so that other astronomers can learn about it and plan their own science studies with Webb’s rich data sets. “We are committed to helping the astronomical community make the most of the fantastic resource we have at Webb,” said UNCOVER co-principal Gabriel Brammer of the Niels Bohr Institute’s Cosmic Dawn Center at the University of Copenhagen. “This is just the beginning of all the amazing Webb science to come.
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s leading observatory for space science. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look further to distant worlds around other stars, and explore the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
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