Pan of Pandora’s Cluster: Abell 2744 | James Webb Space Telescope

Pan of Pandora’s Cluster: Abell 2744 | James Webb Space Telescope

Astronomers estimate 50,000 sources of near-infrared light are represented in this image from the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope. Their light has traveled through various distances to reach the telescope’s detectors, representing the vastness of space in a single image. 

A foreground star in our own galaxy, to the right of the image center, displays Webb’s distinctive diffraction spikes. Bright white sources surrounded by a hazy glow are the galaxies of Pandora’s Cluster, a conglomeration of already-massive clusters of galaxies coming together to form a mega cluster. The concentration of mass is so great that the fabric of spacetime is warped by gravity, creating a natural, super-magnifying glass called a 'gravitational lens' that astronomers can use to see very distant sources of light beyond the cluster that would otherwise be undetectable, even to Webb.

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, I. Labbe (Swinburne University of Technology), R. Bezanson (University of Pittsburgh), A. Pagan (STScI), N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb)  

Duration: 30 seconds

Release Date: Feb. 15, 2023

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