Astronomers from the James Web Space Observatory announced a new image that includes accurate details of the cluster of galaxies called “Apple S 1063”, which is about 4.5 billion years away from Earth.
This means that these are the image of these galaxies about 4.5 billion years ago, and to understand the idea, let’s imagine that there is an unfortunate accident, as one of them suffered a fracture in the thigh bone in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, this happened at nine o’clock in the evening of the fifth Saturday of November, and there is no way for any way we can transfer the news to his family in Aswan.
Consequently, one of them will have to travel to Alexandria by train to transfer the news, and he will arrive at them at four o’clock in the evening, Sunday, November sixth. Although the person was already injured on the evening of November 5, these parents in Aswan did not know this until exactly four o’clock in the next day.
This is what happens for stars and galaxies.
Here is a short video released by the James Web platform showing the new image details:
Gravity lens
In the new image, a huge bright elliptical decentralized galaxy appears, representing the nucleus of the Apple S 1063 cluster, and around it, short, glowing and curved arches, which are pictures of remote background galaxies that were enlarged and distorted by the gravitational lens phenomenon, according to what was stated in Statement An official journalist issued by the James Web Observatory platform.
The explanation for the gravitational lens is that the light goes on straight lines unless it passes next to a very huge body, such as one of the distant galaxies or stars.
In this case, light rays bend due to the strong gravity of that galaxy or that star, and as a result, we see what falls behind them in an incorrect place or a stretch and distorted body, and sometimes, if the conditions are perfect, we see it as a luminous roll around the closest galaxy.
To understand the idea, imagine that you are standing on the street, and you see a car light from afar, but between you and it there is a huge transparent glass ball.
This ball distorts the light coming from the lamps and makes it appear strange or in more than one location, the ball here plays the role of “gravity lens”, but in space the effect is gravity and not glass.
Unprecedented details
The new image offers the deepest look so far to the James Web Observatory on one goal, as it was taken using 9 different shots in the wavelengths near the infrared, with a total monitoring time of about 120 hours
This image aims to study a period known as the “dawn of the universe”, when the age of the universe was only a few million years old
The analyzes of this data led to the discovery of candidates for galaxies believed to have been found after only 200 million years of the Big Bang, which helps in understanding how the first galaxies in the universe formed.