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CTOnews.com, February 20 (Xinhua) the latest deep space images from the NASA James Webb Space Telescope show a space region called the Pandora Cluster (Pandora's Cluster), Abell 2744, where a giant galaxy cluster acts as a natural magnifying glass, allowing us to better see distant galaxies in the early universe.

▲ astronomers estimate that there are 50000 near-infrared sources in this image. Their light travels through different distances to reach the telescope's detectors, representing a vast space in a single image. Image sources: NASA, ESA, CSA, I. Labbe (Swinburne University of Technology) and R. Bezanson (University of Pittsburgh), processed by Alyssa Pagan (STScI), this image shows three large clusters of galaxies coming together to form a larger cluster, eventually forming a gravitational lens strong enough for us to observe distant galaxies in the early universe.

Previously, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has only studied the central area of Pandora in detail. With the help of Weber Telescope's powerful infrared instruments and extensive mosaic views of multiple lens regions in the region, astronomers will achieve a broader and deeper balance, which will open up new frontiers in cosmology and galactic evolution.

"Pandora's ancient myth is about human curiosity and the discovery of depicting the past from the future, and I think it has something to do with the new areas of the universe that Weber is opening up, including this deep space image of the Pandora cluster." it's an appropriate connection, "said Rachel Besanson, an astronomer at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. She is the co-lead researcher of the "Ultradeep NIRSpec and NIRCam ObserVations before the Epoch of Reionization" UNCOVER project, which aims to study the region.

"when Weber first sent an image of the Pandora cluster, we were simply fascinated." with so many details and so many distant lens galaxies in the foreground cluster, I found myself lost in the image. Webber exceeded our expectations. "

According to reports, this new picture of the Pandora cluster is actually a panoramic image of four Weber snapshots, showing about 50,000 near-infrared light sources.

In addition to magnification, gravitational lenses distort the appearance of distant galaxies, so they look very different from galaxies in the foreground. The "lens" of a galaxy cluster is so large that it distorts the structure of space itself, so that light from distant galaxies shows a distorted appearance through the distorted space.

Ivo Labbe, an astronomer at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia, who co-led the project, said Hubble had never photographed the lens nucleus at the lower right of the image. Weber revealed hundreds of distant lens galaxies that looked like faint arcs in the image. Zoom in to this area and you will find more and more of these little guys.

"Weber's Pandora cluster shows us a stronger, wider, deeper and better lens than we've ever seen before." my first reaction to this picture was that it was so beautiful that it looked like a simulation of galaxy formation. but we must remind ourselves that this is real data and that we are now in a new era of astronomy. "

The UNCOVER team captured the cluster using Weber's near-infrared camera (NIRCam). The exposure lasted 4-6 hours, and the total observation time was about 30 hours. The next step is to carefully examine the imaging data, use the near Infrared Spectrometer (NIRSpec) to select galaxies for follow-up observations, and will provide accurate distance measurements and other details about the composition of lenticular galaxies, providing new insights into the early stages of galaxy assembly and evolution. "the team expects to make these observations in the summer of 2023.

CTOnews.com warned that all NIRCam photometric data have been made public, and any interested astronomer can get it and use Weber's rich deep space data to complete their own scientific research.

"We are committed to helping the astronomical community make full use of the amazing resources we have in the Weber Telescope," said Gabriel Brammer, a co-researcher at the Universe Dawn Center at the Nils Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen. "this is just the beginning of all the amazing things."

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