NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured a captivating infrared image of a galaxy cluster known as "El Gordo," revealing distant, dusty objects never seen before.
El Gordo, a massive cluster of galaxies that existed 6.2 billion years ago, acts as a natural cosmic magnifying glass through gravitational lensing.
A team of researchers targeted El Gordo due to its gravitational lensing effect, where its powerful gravity bends and distorts the light of objects behind it. This lensing effect provided a unique opportunity to observe distant galaxies that were otherwise challenging to detect.
The Fishhook
One of the most striking features in the image is a bright arc nicknamed "El Anzuelo" or "The Fishhook." This distant galaxy took 10.6 billion years for its light to reach Earth, and its red color is a result of reddening from dust within the galaxy and cosmological redshift due to its extreme distance.
Through careful correction of the lensing distortions, the Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science (PEARLS) team revealed that this background galaxy is disk-shaped and about one-fourth the size of the Milky Way.
Another prominent feature in the image is a long, pencil-thin line called "La Flaca" or "The Thin One." It is another lensed background galaxy, and nearby, researchers discovered three images of a single red giant star they nicknamed "Quyllur," the Quechua term for a star.
Using Webb's infrared filters and sensitivity, Quyllur becomes the first individual red giant star observed beyond 1 billion light-years from Earth.
Furthermore, the image uncovers five multiply lensed galaxies, implying the formation of a baby galaxy cluster approximately 12.1 billion years ago. Additionally, researchers observed faint, smudge-like galaxies called ultra-diffuse galaxies scattered throughout the El Gordo cluster.
These distant galaxies exhibit distinct characteristics compared to their local counterparts, suggesting the significant impact of residing in the cluster environment for the past 6 billion years.
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PEARLS-Clusters
The PEARLS-Clusters branch of the PEARLS team led the analysis of the El Gordo observations. The images provided by Webb are not only scientifically valuable but also breathtakingly beautiful, showcasing the power of gravitational lensing and the potential of the James Webb Space Telescope to unlock the secrets of the universe as envisioned by Albert Einstein over a century ago.
"Gravitational lensing was predicted by Albert Einstein more than 100 years ago. In the El Gordo cluster, we see the power of gravitational lensing in action," said Rogier Windhorst of Arizona State University, principal investigator of the PEARLS program.
"The PEARLS images of El Gordo are out-of-this-world beautiful. And, they have shown us how Webb can unlock Einstein's treasure chest."
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