Improved model for the mass distribution of galaxy cluster SMACS J0723.3−7327 based on Webb telescope image
Published Date: 7/28/2022
Source: phys.org
Using the first science image released by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) this month, an international team of scientists with significant contribution from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has built an improved model for the mass distribution of the galaxy cluster SMACS J0723.3−7327. Acting as a so-called gravitational lens, the foreground galaxy cluster produces both multiple images of background galaxies and magnifies these images. One family of such multiple images belongs to a galaxy, which the model predicts to be at a distance of about 13 Gyrs, i.e., whose light traveled some 13 billion years before reaching the telescope.