Close-up: A deep field in Fornax: Thousands of distant galaxies | Webb Telescope
This image from the NASA/European Space Agency/Canadian Space Agency James Webb Space Telescope revisits one of the most iconic regions of the sky, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, through the eyes of two of Webb’s instruments. The result is a detailed view that reveals thousands of distant galaxies, a portion dating back to the earliest periods of cosmic history.
The field shown here, known as the MIRI Deep Imaging Survey (MIDIS) region, was observed with the three shortest-wavelength filters of Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) for nearly 100 hours in total. This included Webb's longest observation of an extragalactic field in one filter so far, producing one of the deepest views ever obtained of the Universe. Combined with data from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), this image allows astronomers to explore how galaxies formed and evolved over billions of years.
These deep observations have revealed more than 2500 sources in this tiny patch of sky. Among them are hundreds of extremely red galaxies. These are likely massive, dust-obscured systems or evolved galaxies with mature stars that formed early in the Universe’s history. Thanks to Webb’s sharp resolution, even at mid-infrared wavelengths, researchers can resolve the structures of many of these galaxies and study how their light is distributed, shedding light on their growth and evolution.
In this image, the colors that have been assigned to kinds of infrared light highlight the fine distinctions astronomers can make with this deep data. Orange and red represent the longest mid-infrared wavelengths. The galaxies in these colors have extra features—such as high concentrations of dust, copious star formation, or an active galactic nucleus (AGN) at their center, emitting more of this farther infrared light. Small, greenish-white galaxies are particularly distant with high redshift. This shifts their light spectrum into the peak mid-infrared wavelengths of the data, depicted in white and green. Most of the galaxies in this image lack any such mid-infrared boosting features, leaving them most bright at shorter near-infrared wavelengths, depicted with blue and cyan colors.
By returning to this legacy field first made famous by the NASA/European Space Agency Hubble Space Telescope, Webb is continuing and expanding the deep field tradition—revealing new details, uncovering previously hidden galaxies, and offering fresh insights into the formation of the first cosmic structures.
Image Description: An area of deep space with thousands of galaxies in a variety of shapes and sizes on a black background. Most are circles or ovals with a few spirals. More distant galaxies are smaller, down to being mere dots, while closer galaxies are larger and a number appear to be glowing. Red and orange galaxies contain more dust or more stellar activity.
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Östlin, P. G. Perez-Gonzalez, J. Melinder, the JADES Collaboration, the MIDIS collaboration, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb)
Duration: 30 seconds
Release Date: Aug. 1, 2025
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