Webb's First Deep Field

The background of space is black. Thousands of galaxies appear all across the view. Their shapes and colors vary. Some are various shades of orange, others are white. Most stars appear blue, and are sometimes as large as more distant galaxies that appear next to them. A very bright star is just above and left of center. It has eight long, bright-blue diffraction spikes. Between 4 o'clock and 6 o'clock in its spikes are several very bright galaxies. A group of three are in the middle, and two are closer to 4 o'clock. These galaxies are part of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, and they are warping the appearances of galaxies seen around them. Long orange arcs appear at left and right toward the center.
Webb's First Deep Field

Webb's First Deep Field is the first operational image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The deep-field photograph, which covers a tiny area of sky visible from the Southern Hemisphere, is centered on SMACS 0723, a galaxy cluster in the constellation of Volans. Thousands of galaxies are visible in the image, some as old as 13 billion years.[1] It is the highest-resolution image of the early universe ever taken. Captured by the telescope's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), the image was revealed to the public by NASA on 11 July 2022.

  1. ^ "Webb's First Deep Field (NIRSpec MSA Emission Spectra)". WebbTelescope.org. Archived from the original on 7 March 2023. Retrieved 14 July 2022.