The Webb Space Telescope sees a massive protocluster of galaxies in the early Universe

A protocluster of seven galaxies has been confirmed for the first time at a distance of redshift 7.9.

According to the European Space Agency — an international partner of the James Webb Space Telescope with NASA and the Canadian Space Agency — the term “redshift” refers to how the wavelength of light is stretched and seen as “shifted” towards the red part of the electromagnetic Spectrum.

The higher the redshift, the further away – and backward in time – the source is.

In this case, the protoclusters of galaxies were just 650 million years after the Big Bang, according to data collected with the telescope. Using this data, astronomers calculated the future evolution of the cluster and found that it will likely increase in size and mass to resemble the Coma cluster.

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The seven galaxies highlighted in this James Webb Space Telescope image have been confirmed to be at what astronomers call redshift 7.9, the equivalent of 650 million years after the Big Bang. This makes them among the earliest galaxies yet to be spectroscopically confirmed as part of an evolving cluster. (Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, T. Morishita (IPAC). Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI))

The Coma Cluster contains thousands of galaxies and is more than 20 million light-years across.

The measurements captured by the telescope’s near-infrared spectograph, one of Webb’s instruments, were key in confirming the distances of the galaxies and the high speeds moving with a dark matter halo at more than two million miles per hour.

“This is a very special, unique site of accelerated galaxy evolution, and Webb gave us an unprecedented ability to measure the velocities of these seven galaxies and confidently confirm that they are interconnected in a protocluster,” said Takahiro Morishita of the IPAC-California Institute of Technology, the lead author of the study published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, said in a statement.

Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys has observed a large portion of the Coma Cluster, spanning millions of light-years. (Source: NASA, ESA and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA). Credit: D. Carter (Liverpool John Moores University) and the Coma HST ACS Treasury Team.)

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Galaxy clusters are the largest concentrations of mass in the known universe, and they can dramatically distort the fabric of spacetime in a process called “gravitational lensing.”

This magnification effect allowed the researchers to peer through the Pandora cluster to see the protocluster.

GREENBELT, MD – NOVEMBER 2: A technician stands next to the James Webb Space Telescope during assembly November 2, 2016 at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. ((Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images))

The seven galaxies confirmed by Webb were initially identified as candidates for observation by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Frontier Fields program, which used Hubble time for gravitational lensing observations. However, while Hubble cannot see light beyond the near-infrared, Webb was designed to observe infrared wavelengths.

In addition to images, the observatory also contains detailed spectroscopic data.

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NASA’s Roman Space Telescope Nancy Grace will have 200 times the infrared field of view of Hubble in a single exposure and will be able to identify more protocluster galaxy candidates. This mission is scheduled to be launched by May 2027.