Caption
A cosmic question mark appears amid a powerful gravitational lens in the James Webb Space Telescope’s wide-field view of the galaxy cluster MACS-J0417.5-1154. Gravitational lensing occurs when something is so massive, like this galaxy cluster, that it warps the fabric of space-time itself, creating a natural funhouse-mirror effect that also magnifies galaxies behind it.
The rarely seen type of lensing captured here, which astronomers term hyperbolic umbilic, created five repeated images of one galaxy pair. The red, elongated member of this pair traces the familiar shape of a question mark across the sky due to the distortion, with another unrelated galaxy happening to be in just the right space-time to appear like the question mark’s dot – especially for humans who love to recognize familiar shapes and patterns.
See more detail in the question mark galaxy here and see the repeated images of the galaxies labeled here.
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | MACS J0417.5-1154 |
| Object Description | Galaxy Cluster |
| R.A. Position | 04:17:34.6 |
| Dec. Position | -11:54:32 |
| Constellation | Eridanus |
| Distance | 4.65 billion light-years (z=0.441) |
| Dimensions | Image is about 2.4 arcmin across (about 3.3 million light-years) |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description | This image was created with Webb data from proposal: (C. Willott); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI) |
| Instrument | NIRCam |
| Exposure Dates | Oct 2022 |
| Filters | F090W, F150W, F444W |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the James Webb Space Telescope using the NIRCam instrument. Several filters were used to sample wide wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are: Blue: F090W Green: F150W Red: F444W |
| About The Object | |
|---|---|
| Object Name | A name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object. |
| Object Description | The type of astronomical object. |
| R.A. Position | Right ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Dec. Position | Declination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position. |
| Constellation | One of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears. |
| Distance | The physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs. |
| Dimensions | The physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky. |
| About The Data | |
| Data Description |
|
| Instrument | The science instrument used to produce the data. |
| Exposure Dates | The date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time. |
| Filters | The camera filters that were used in the science observations. |
| About The Image | |
| Color Info | A brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented. |
| Compass and Scale Image | An astronomical image with a scale that shows how large an object is on the sky, a compass that shows how the object is oriented on the sky, and the filters with which the image was made. |
