Youths!
Webb observed the galaxy cluster El Gordo, a “cosmic teenager” that existed 6.2 billion years after the big bang. The most massive cluster of its era, it’s a perfect magnifying glass. (Its gravitational pull is so strong that it has bent and magnified light from distant objects behind it.)
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, or The Thin One. 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! Webb peered through its thick curtain of dust to observe star formation and the assembly of galaxies up close.
Read more:
www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2023/webb-spotlights-gravita...
Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, Jose M. Diego (IFCA), Brenda Frye (University of Arizona), Patrick Kamieneski (ASU), Tim Carleton (ASU), Rogier Windhorst (ASU), with image processing by Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Jake Summers (ASU), Jordan C. J. D'Silva (UWA), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI), Aaron Robotham (UWA), Rogier Windhorst (ASU).
Image description: The left two-thirds of the frame shows a field of small galaxies on a black background. Near the center of the image, a long, thin line is outlined with a white box and labeled A. At upper right, a red swoosh nearly encircling two galaxies is outlined with a white box and labeled B. The right third of the frame shows zoomed in views of the two regions in the boxes. At top in box A, a thin mottled line extends from upper left to lower right with a handful of background objects. At bottom in box B, a red swoosh wraps around from upper left to lower right, nearly encircling two small galaxies located at one o’clock and seven o’clock.
