The CEERS survey will eventually map an area of roughly 0.75° × 0.15° in a region of the sky known as the Hubble Space Telescope Extended Groth Strip (HST EGS), with an aim to study the high-redshift Universe. CEERS will initially employ JWST’s NIRCam and MIRI instruments, before also taking NIRSpec observations. The image shown here — which should be viewed in high resolution to appreciate its splendour — is composed of 690 individual NIRCam frames in four sections of the sky. This mosaic will be extended in December 2022 to complete Epoch 1 of observations. MIRI has already observed four other regions in the EGS, and will also be utilized in the second observing session in December.
Some visual highlights of the NIRCam image appear in the boxes numbered 1–6. From left to right, these panels feature (1) a spiral galaxy at a redshift z = 0.16, exhibiting several blue star-forming clumps and star clusters; (2) a galaxy at z = 1.05 along with an arc of smaller galaxies; (3) interacting galaxies at z = 1.4; (4) two interacting galaxies at z = 0.7, one of which contains a newly discovered supernova (marked by the arrow); (5) a wispy spiral galaxy at z = 0.7 and (6) a distant grouping of red galaxies (at z = 1.85) along with a closer galaxy with a tidal tail. Although less impressive visually, also in the image is a small red galaxy that might be one of the first galaxies ever formed. With a redshift of at least z = 11.8, the light from this galaxy set off on its journey less than 400 million years after the Big Bang.
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