The James Webb telescope captures a spiral galaxy billion light years away

1. The European Space Agency (ESA) has shared an image of a large spiral galaxy that is over a billion light-years away from Earth.

Also Read | Blue Origin announces technology that can turn Moon dust into solar panels

Initially taken in May last year, and released to the public at the end of January 2023, the cluster of galaxies seen in the photo is called LEDA 2046648, and it is situated a billion light years from the Earth, in a constellation called Hercules.

Thanks to the telescope's infrared capabilities, it allows astronomers to view the various stages of the galaxy's formation when the image is "redshifted towards infrared wavelengths".

Also Read | Human activity degraded more than a third of remaining Amazon forest: Study

This will let astronomers compare the findings to our universe, helping illustrate how galaxies build and evolve over time.

Not only that, some of the smaller galaxies in the image can be as old as 300 million years after the Big Bang. This can help shed light on the stars and planets that formed out of the Big Bang, uncovering the mysteries that surround the creation of the universe.