The second-and fourth-most distant galaxies ever observed have been discovered in a region of space known as Pandora’s Cluster, or Abell 2,744, using data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Following up on a deep field image of the area, an international team led by Penn State researchers confirmed the distance of these ancient galaxies and inferred their properties using new spectroscopic data — information about light emitted across the electromagnetic spectrum — from JWST. At nearly 33 billion light years away, these incredibly distant galaxies offer insights into how the earliest galaxies might have formed.

Unlike other galaxies confirmed at this distance that appear in images as red dots, the new galaxies are larger and appear like a peanut and a fluffy ball, according to the researchers. A paper describing the galaxies appears today (Nov 13) in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“Very little is known about the early universe, and the only way to learn about that time and to test our theories of early galaxy formation and growth is with these very distant galaxies,” said first-author Bingjie Wang, postdoctoral scholar in the Penn State Eberly College of Science and a member of the JWST UNCOVER (Ultradeep NIRSpec and NIRCam ObserVations before the Epoch of Reionization) team that conducted the research. “Prior to our analysis, we knew of only three galaxies confirmed at around this extreme distance. Studying these new galaxies and their properties has revealed the diversity of galaxies in the early universe and how much there is to be learned from them.”

In a groundbreaking feat, a deep space experiment travelling on NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has successfully transmitted data via a near-infrared laser to Earth from 16 million kilometres away!

A deep space experiment traveling on NASA’s Psyche spacecraft has just beamed a message via laser to Earth from far beyond the Moon for the first time, an achievement that could transform how spacecraft communicate.

In the farthest-ever demonstration of this type of optical communication, the Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) beamed a near-infrared laser encoded with test data from its position around 16 million kilometers (10 million miles) away – which is around 40 times farther than the Moon is from Earth – to the Hale Telescope at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in California.

The DSOC is a two-year tech demonstration riding along on Psyche as it makes its way to its prime target, asteroid Psyche. The demo achieved “first light” on November 14, according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), which manages both missions, thanks to an incredibly precise maneuver that saw its laser transceiver lock onto JPL’s powerful uplink laser beacon at its Table Mountain Observatory, which allowed the DSOC’s transceiver to aim its downlink laser at Caltech’s observatory 130 kilometers (100 miles) away.

A stunning image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows a cluster of protostars at the dense center of the Milky Way.

On Nov. 17, JUICE performed a 43-minute burn to get into position for its upcoming Earth-moon flyby, the first-ever double gravity assist.

The stars move across the night sky, over long periods like 10 years, and short periods of around six months.

The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered a massive chain of 20 galaxies in the early universe, raising questions about the formation of the largest structures in the cosmos.