Pandora’s Cluster of Galaxies

Pandora’s Cluster of Galaxies

Image Credit:

NASA,
ESA,
CSA,

Ivo Labbe (Swinburne), Rachel Bezanson (University of Pittsburgh),

Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Explanation:

This deep field mosaicked image
presents a stunning view of galaxy cluster Abell 2744 recorded by
the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam.

Also dubbed Pandora’s Cluster, Abell 2744 itself
appears to be a ponderous merger of three different massive galaxy
clusters.

It lies some 3.5 billion light-years away, toward the constellation
Sculptor.

Dominated by
dark matter,
the mega-cluster warps and distorts
the fabric of spacetime,
gravitationally lensing
even more distant objects.

Redder than the Pandora cluster galaxies
many of the lensed sources are very distant galaxies in the early
Universe, their lensed images stretched and distorted into arcs.

Of course distinctive
diffraction spikes mark foreground Milky Way
stars.

At the Pandora Cluster’s estimated
distance this cosmic box spans about 6 million light-years.

But don’t panic.

You can explore the tantalizing region in a
2 minute video tour.