James Webb Space Telescope provides new details of early galaxy

The images are helping to shed new light on a mysterious galaxy first discovered 10 years ago

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  Uranus is surrounded by 13 rings and 27 small moons as it rotates at a nearly 90-degree angle from the plane of its orbit. Photo: Nasa

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  Complex organic molecules similar to smoke or smog in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years from Earth. Photo: Nasa

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  A delicate image of dust structures and bright star clusters taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. Photo: Nasa

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  Saturn has seven rings with several gaps and divisions between them, as well as 53 known moons. Photo: Nasa

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  Star cluster NGC 346, spiral galaxies NGC 1672 and Messier 74, and the Pillars of Creation, towering tendrils of cosmic dust and gas at the heart of the Eagle Nebula. Photo: Nasa

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  An infrared image of Neptune, the only planet in our solar system not visible to the naked eye. Photo: Nasa

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  Every eight years, the two stars in this image are brought together by their orbits – creating colliding streams of gas that, under the right conditions, form a new ring of dust. Photo: Nasa

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  A part of the Orion Nebula known as the Orion Bar. Photo: Nasa

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  A crowded field of galaxies, along with stars crowned with the James Webb Space Telescope's signature six-pointed diffraction spikes. Photo: Nasa

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  The NGC 3256 spiral galaxy was formed after a collision of two massive galaxies about 500 million years ago. Photo: Nasa

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  The Wolf-Rayet 124 star, featured in an image combining near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths of light. Photo: Nasa

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  An hourglass-shaped cloud of dust and gas is illuminated by light from a protostar. Photo: Nasa

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  Two views of the Southern Ring Nebula, which show the planetary nebula as a misshapen oval. Photo: Nasa

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  A composite image of the Cartwheel Galaxy captured by the James Webb Space Telescope in August 2022. AFP

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  A cluster of stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, near the Milky Way. Photo: JWST

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  A colour composite image of the Messier 74 galaxy. Photo: JWST

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  The gravity of galaxy cluster MACS0647 bends and magnifies light from the more distant MACS0647-JD. Photo: Nasa

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  The 'Pillars of Creation' — clouds of hydrogen gas and dust 6,500 light years from Earth — captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, left, and James Webb Space Telescope. AP

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  Dust rings resembling a fingerprint created by a rare type of star and its companion. PA

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  Images of the asteroid Dimorphos hours after Nasa crashed a spacecraft into it in September 2022. EPA

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  Neptune and seven of its 14 known moons. AFP

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  Thousands of young stars in a stellar nursery called the Tarantula Nebula. Photo: Nasa

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  A image of an exoplanet — a gas giant with no rocky surface. Photo: Nasa, ESA and CSA

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  Glass-z13, the oldest galaxy to be detected, was formed about 300 million years after the Big Bang. Photo: JWST

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  Jupiter and its moon Europa. Photo: Nasa

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  Jupiter and its moons Europa, Thebe and Metis. Photo: Nasa

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  Another image of Jupiter and some of its 79 moons. Photo: Nasa

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  An image of galaxy cluster Smacs 0723 taken by the James Webb telescope. Photo: Nasa

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  Stephan’s Quintet is an area in space that has five galaxies. Photo: JWST

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  The 'Cosmic Cliffs' of the Carina Nebula. Photo: JWST

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  An anniversary image shows the birth of a star in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. Photo: Nasa

Images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed new details of an early galaxy that formed in the first 400 million years of the universe.

Scientists first discovered galaxy MACS0647-JD through the Hubble Space Telescope, but the more advanced $10 billion Webb telescope has allowed them to see it in greater detail.

Astronomers at the European Space Agency, Johns Hopkins University and the University of Texas at Austin have been studying the galaxy and have found there could possibly be two galaxies in that same area of space.

“I discovered this galaxy MACS0647-JD 10 years ago with the Hubble Space Telescope,” said Dan Coe from the European Space Agency.

“With Hubble, it was just this pale, red dot. We could tell it was really small, just a tiny galaxy in the first 400 million years of the universe.

“Now we look with Webb and we’re able to resolve two objects.

“We’re actively discussing whether these are two galaxies or two clumps of stars within a galaxy. We don’t know, but these are the questions that Webb is designed to help us answer.”

A gif that shows the difference between the galaxy MACS0647-JD image first taken by the Hubble Space Telescope 10 years ago and most recently by the James Webb Telescope. Gif: Nasa

The massive gravity of galaxy cluster MACS0647 acts as a cosmic lens, bending and magnifying light from the more distant MAC0647-JD system.

This helps astronomers see the system more clearly than ever before.

Rebecca Larson from the University of Texas said that studying these galaxies can help them understand how they evolved through time.

“Up to this point, we haven’t really been able to study galaxies in the early universe in great detail,” she said.

“I think my favourite part is, for so many new Webb images we get, if you look in the background, there are all these little dots — and those are all galaxies. Every single one of them.”

The $10 billion Webb telescope was launched into space on Christmas Day last year and began its science operations this summer.

Since then, it has been beaming back stunning images that are helping scientists better understand the mysteries of the universe.

The first image from the telescope was revealed by US President Joe Biden on July 11. It showed the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it was 4.6 billion years ago.

On July 20, it detected the oldest known galaxy in the universe, called Glass-z13, which was formed about 300 million years after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago.