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.

The photograph was taken with the James Webb Telescope, regarded as the largest optical telescope in space. It is equipped with high-resolution, and high-sensitivity optics, allowing it to photograph distant objects in space.

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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".

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