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                           Astronomy Picture of the Day   
      
       Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our   
         fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation   
                       written by a professional astronomer.   
      
                                   2022 July 13   
      
                              Webb's First Deep Field   
                    Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NIRCam   
      
      Explanation: This is the deepest, sharpest infrared image of the cosmos   
      so far. The view of the early Universe toward the southern   
      constellation Volans was achieved in 12.5 hours of exposure with the   
      NIRCam instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope. Of course the   
      stars with six visible spikes are well within our own Milky Way. That   
      diffraction pattern is characteristic of Webb's 18 hexagonal mirror   
      segments operating together as a single 6.5 meter diameter primary   
      mirror. The thousands of galaxies flooding the field of view are   
      members of the distant galaxy cluster SMACS0723-73, some 4.6 billion   
      light-years away. Luminous arcs that seem to infest the deep field are   
      even more distant galaxies though. Their images are distorted and   
      magnified by the dark matter dominated mass of the galaxy cluster, an   
      effect known as gravitational lensing. Analyzing light from two   
      separate arcs below the bright spiky star, Webb's NIRISS instrument   
      indicates the arcs are both images of the same background galaxy. And   
      that galaxy's light took about 9.5 billion years to reach the James   
      Webb Space Telescope.   
      
                        Tomorrow's picture: closer to home   
        __________________________________________________________________   
      
          Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)   
               NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.   
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                         A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC   
                                & Michigan Tech. U.   
      
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