A Visual Feast of Galaxies

A vast sea of galaxies fills this image from the James Webb Space Telescope, each one a collection of billions of stars. The brightest points marked by diffraction spikes are stars within our own Milky Way, but nearly everything else in view lies far beyond, spanning billions of light-years into deep cosmic history.

Near the center, a compact group of golden-white galaxies forms the focal point. We see them as they appeared 6.5 billion years ago, when the Universe was less than half its current age. More than half of all galaxies belong to similar groups, where gravitational ties draw them together and sometimes reshape them through mergers or close encounters.

Webb’s infrared vision reveals galaxy groups stretching back to when the Universe was only 1.9 billion years old, about 14% of its present age. Across this frame, you can trace spiral arms, warped disks, smooth ellipticals, and galaxies caught mid-collision, each tinted by its age and distance — younger appearing bluer, and older being redder.