page_title: SPT0615-JD
hierarchical_section_title: SPT0615-JD
caption_attribution_description: English: Dotted across the sky in the constellation of Pictor (The Painter’s Easel) is the galaxy cluster highlighted here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope: SPT-CL J0615-5746, or SPT0615 for short. First discovered by the South Pole Telescope less than a decade ago, SPT0615 is exceptional among the myriad clusters so far catalogued in our map of the Universe — it is the highest-redshift cluster for which a full, strong lens model is published. SPT0615 is a massive cluster of galaxies, one of the farthest observed to cause gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing occurs when light from a background object is deflected around mass between the object and the observer. Among the identified background objects, there is SPT0615-JD, a galaxy that is thought to have emerged just 500 million years after the Big Bang. This puts it among the very earliest structures to form in the Universe. It is also the farthest galaxy ever imaged by means of gravitational lensing. Just as ancient paintings can tell us about the period of history in which they were painted, so too can ancient galaxies tell us about the era of the Universe in which they existed. To learn about cosmological history, astronomers explore the most distant reaches of the Universe, probing ever further out into the cosmos. The light from distant objects travels to us from so far away that it takes an immensely long time to reach us, meaning that it carries information from the past — information about the time at which it was emitted. By studying such distant objects, astronomers are continuing to fill the gaps in our picture of what the very early Universe looked like, and uncover more about how it evolved into its current state.
context_page_description: SPT0615-JD is a dwarf galaxy situated within the constellation Pictor, and is the farthest galaxy ever imaged by means of gravitational lensing, as of 2018. Brett Salmon of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore was the lead scientist of the study of the galaxy.
  The galaxy was identified in the Hubble telescope Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey and companion S-RELICS Spitzer program and is at the limits of Hubble's detection capabilities. As a consequence of the effect of a gravitational field of a galaxy cluster of an extremely large size, SPT-CL J0615-5746, situated at a distance closer to earth, light from SPT0615-JD located at a further distance, is amplified and distorted on its motion to the Hubble telescope. This distortion causes the light from the galaxy to arrive as an image lengthened to an arc of about 2 arcseconds long.
  "JD" is short for "J-band Dropout"
context_section_description: SPT0615-JD is a dwarf galaxy situated within the constellation Pictor, and is the farthest galaxy ever imaged by means of gravitational lensing, as of 2018. Brett Salmon of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore was the lead scientist of the study of the galaxy.
  The galaxy was identified in the Hubble telescope Reionization Lensing Cluster Survey (RELICS) and companion S-RELICS Spitzer program and is at the limits of Hubble's detection capabilities. As a consequence of the effect of a gravitational field of a galaxy cluster of an extremely large size, SPT-CL J0615-5746, (abbreviated to SPT0615), situated at a distance closer to earth, light from SPT0615-JD  located at a further distance, is amplified and distorted (lensed - Einstein 1936; Khvolson 1924; Link 1936) on its motion to the Hubble telescope. This distortion causes the light from the galaxy to arrive as an image lengthened to an arc of about 2 arcseconds long.
  "JD" is short for "J-band Dropout"  (the galaxy is not detected in the so-called J-band (F125W) The observed image is of 13.3 billion years ago, indicating the galaxy existed when the universe was about only 500 million years in existence. The galaxy is less than 2,500 light-years across.
caption: SPT0615-JD (closer detailed image)  using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope (the galaxy is located towards the upper left, to the right of the group of two stars and one galaxy)
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Dotted across the sky in the constellation of Pictor (The Painter\u2019s Easel) is the galaxy cluster highlighted here by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope: SPT-CL J0615-5746, or SPT0615 for short. First discovered by the South Pole Telescope less than a decade ago, SPT0615 is exceptional among the myriad clusters so far catalogued in our map of the Universe \u2014 it is the highest-redshift cluster for which a full, strong lens model is published. SPT0615 is a massive cluster of galaxies, one of the farthest observed to cause gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing occurs when light from a background object is deflected around mass between the object and the observer. Among the identified background objects, there is SPT0615-JD, a galaxy that is thought to have emerged just 500 million years after the Big Bang. This puts it among the very earliest structures to form in the Universe. It is also the farthest galaxy ever imaged by means of gravitational lensing. Just as ancient paintings can tell us about the period of history in which they were painted, so too can ancient galaxies tell us about the era of the Universe in which they existed. To learn about cosmological history, astronomers explore the most distant reaches of the Universe, probing ever further out into the cosmos. The light from distant objects travels to us from so far away that it takes an immensely long time to reach us, meaning that it carries information from the past \u2014 information about the time at which it was emitted. By studying such distant objects, astronomers are continuing to fill the gaps in our picture of what the very early Universe looked like, and uncover more about how it evolved into its current state.", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CC 2019 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2019:02:12 16:01:07"}