The massive cluster galaxy dubbed "El Gordo" was caught by James Webb Space Telescope. Webb released a new photo revealing distant and dusty objects never seen before.
El Gordo Photos From James Webb Space Telescope
A brand-new view of the "El Gordo" galaxy cluster opens up new scientific possibilities. The odd, twisted backdrop galaxies visible in the infrared image, which NASA's James Webb Space Telescope captured, were only hinted at in earlier Hubble Space Telescope photographs, Space.com reported.
El Gordo existed when the universe was 6.2 billion years old, making it a "cosmic teenager." The Spanish word "El Gordo" means the "Fat One."
The El Gordo target was chosen because, thanks to gravitational lensing, it serves as a cosmic magnifying glass in a natural way. Like an eyeglass lens, its strong gravity bends and distorts the light of objects behind it.
Per Webb, one of El Gordo's most noticeable aspects is the dazzling arc at the upper right, shown in red. One of Frye's students named it "El Anzuelo" or "The Fishhook." It took this galaxy's light 10.6 billion years to reach Earth.
Its characteristic red hue results from a mix of cosmic redshift brought on by the galaxy's vast distance and reddening from internal dust. The team discovered that the background galaxy is disk-shaped but approximately 26,000 light-years in diameter, or roughly one-fourth the size of the Milky Way, by adjusting for the distortions brought on by lensing.
They were also able to investigate the galaxy's history of star formation, discovering that quenching- a process that causes star formation to decline rapidly- was already occurring in the galaxy's center.
The Webb image also has a long, pencil-thin line to the left of the center that stands out. It is another lensed background galaxy called "La Flaca" or "Thin One," whose light also took over 11 billion years to reach Earth.
Another lensed galaxy is not distant from La Flaca. When the scientists looked closely at that galaxy, they saw three images of a single red giant star, which they dubbed Quyllur, a Quechua word for star.
What Is El Gordo Galaxy Cluster?
Due to their combined gravitational force, numerous hundred galaxies are swarming around in the cluster, designated ACT-CL J0102-4915. Although most of the mass is concealed as dark matter, the El Gordo galaxy cluster's overall mass, as determined by fresh Hubble measurements, is predicted to weigh as much as 3 million billion stars like our Sun or roughly 3,000 times as big as our own Milky Way galaxy, according to the Hubblesite.
El Gordo was found to be the most massive, hotter, and emit the most X-rays of any known galaxy cluster at or beyond its distance, NASA added.
When X-ray measurements and kinematic studies initially indicated the cluster was abnormally heavy for the epoch in the early cosmos when it formed, it was given the nickname El Gordo, the Spanish word for "the fat one" in 2012. According to Hubble data, the cluster is experiencing a violent merger between two smaller clusters.
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