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Little Red Dot Abell2744-QSO1 (NIRCam Image)

Space telescope image showing hundreds of bright objects of different size, color, and shape on the black background of space. Colors range from white to deep red. Shapes include elliptical, spiral, dot-like, dash-like, and arcuate. Many of the large objects near the center of the image are fuzzy white, with bright white cores. Many smaller objects scattered throughout the image are pink to red. Three objects in the central part of the image are called out with small white boxes: A box labeled “C” at about 12 o’clock; one labeled “B” at 3 o’clock; and a box labeled “A” at 4 o’clock. Images of the three objects are enlarged in boxes running vertically along the right. From top to bottom these are labeled QSO1A, QSO1B, and QSO1C. At the center of each box is a tiny, circular red dot. QSO1A (top) is notably larger, brighter, and clearer than the other two. QSO1B, in the middle, is smallest and fuzziest, and is somewhat washed out by the light of a larger white object next to it.

An image from NIRCam (the Near Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows Abell2744-QSO1, magnified and triply imaged by galaxy cluster Abell 2744.

Abell2744-QSO1 (QSO1) is a prototypical Little Red Dot, one of the first of now hundreds of tiny glowing flecks of infrared light that Webb has found speckling the early universe. QSO1 is roughly 1,300 light-years across and with a cosmological redshift (z) of 7, its light dates back to just 700 million years after the big bang, when the universe was only 5% of its current age. QSO1 is ideal for study because it is gravitationally lensed, both magnified and triply imaged by Abell 2744, the intervening mega-cluster of galaxies that warps its surrounding space-time.

Detailed study of the brightest of the three lensed images, QSO1A (upper right), shows that the object consists of a central supermassive black hole 50 million times the mass of the Sun, surrounded by a cloud of hydrogen and helium gas with very small amounts of heavier elements like oxygen. Unlike supermassive black holes in nearby galaxies, which make up only a tiny fraction of their host galaxy’s total mass, QSO1’s black hole contains at least twice as much mass as the galactic material surrounding it.

Also known as Pandora’s Cluster, Abell 2744 was imaged in depth by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 2013-2014 as part of the revolutionary Hubble Frontier Fields program, then as part of the Ultradeep NIRSpec and NIRCam ObserVations before the Epoch of Reionization (UNCOVER) program with Webb.

View the full NIRCam image and explore the observation on Space Telescope Live.

About the Object

  • R.A. Position
    R.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.
    00:14:18.25
  • Dec. Position
    Dec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.
    -30:22:46.04
  • Constellation
    ConstellationOne of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.
    Sculptor
  • Distance
    DistanceThe 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.
    About 3.5 billion light-years to cluster and 13.1 billlion light-years to QSO1
  • Dimensions
    DimensionsThe physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky.
    The image is 4.3 arcminutes across

About the Data

  • Data Description
    Data DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
    Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.

    This image was created with Webb data from proposal: 2561 (I. Labbe).

  • Instrument
    InstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.
    NIRCam
  • Exposure Dates
    Exposure DatesThe date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.
    2 Nov 2022, 15 Nov 2022
  • Filters
    FiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.
    F115W, F150W, F200W, F277W, F356W, F444W
  • Object Name
    Object NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
    Pandora’s Cluster, Abell 2744, Abell2744-QSO1
  • Object Description
    Object DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.
    Galaxy cluster and gravitational lens z=7 black hole 
  • Release Date
    May 27, 2026
  • Science Release
    NASA’s Webb Reveals Black Hole That Formed Before Its Galaxy
    Read the release
  • Credit
    Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Lukas Furtak (Ben-Gurion University); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Downloads

  • Full Res (For Print), 11542 × 8657
    tif (285.93 MB)
  • Full Res (For Display), 11542 × 8657
    png (92.33 MB)
  • 11542 × 8657
    jpg (23.53 MB)
  • 2000 × 1500
    jpg (1.05 MB)
Space telescope image showing hundreds of bright objects of different size, color, and shape on the black background of space. Colors range from white to deep red. Shapes include elliptical, spiral, dot-like, dash-like, and arcuate. Many of the large objects near the center of the image are fuzzy white, with bright white cores. Many smaller objects scattered throughout the image are pink to red. Three objects in the central part of the image are called out with small white boxes: A box labeled “C” at about 12 o’clock; one labeled “B” at 3 o’clock; and a box labeled “A” at 4 o’clock. Images of the three objects are enlarged in boxes running vertically along the right. From top to bottom these are labeled QSO1A, QSO1B, and QSO1C. At the center of each box is a tiny, circular red dot. QSO1A (top) is notably larger, brighter, and clearer than the other two. QSO1B, in the middle, is smallest and fuzziest, and is somewhat washed out by the light of a larger white object next to it.
Color Info
Color InfoA brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented.

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 specific 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: F115W+F150W, Green: F200W+F277W, Red: F356W+F444W

Related Images & Videos

Image at left. Pullout with map on right. Left: Space telescope image labeled QSO1A shows small, red, circular object outlined with white square. Scale bar in bottom left corner labeled 1 arcsecond shows that image is about 4 arcseconds across and object is about 0.4 arcseconds across. Right: Enlarged view of Little Red Dot overlaid with dumbbell-shaped array of pixels ranging in color from blue to orange. Dumbbell shape is vertical, and pixels are oriented at 45 degrees. Below pixels is blue to orange scale bar showing that color of each pixel is related to gas velocity in kilometers per second. Left side of scale bar grades from blue (labeled 20) to gray (labeled 0). Blue arrow pointing left from 0 to 20 beneath left (blue) side of scale bar is labeled toward. Orange arrow pointing right from 0 to 20 beneath the right (orange) side labeled away. Pixels on lower half of dumbbell shape are blue to gray. Most pixels on upper half are orange to gray, but some are blue.

Little Red Dot Abell2744-QSO1a (NIRCam Image with NIRSpec IFU Velocity Map)

An image detail from NIRCam (left) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows Little Red Dot Abell2744-QSO1. A map of gas velocity in QSO1 (right), made using the IFU on NIRSpec, shows evidence for a 50-million-solar-mass black hole at the center.

Image titled James Webb Space Telescope, Pandorau2019s Cluster, Little Red Dot Abell2744-QSO1 with compass arrows, scale bar, and color key. A deep field image showing objects of different size, color, and shape. Three tiny, red circular objects are called out with small white boxes, and enlarged in pullouts labeled from top to bottom: QSO1A, QSO1B, and QSO1C. In the bottom left corner of the image are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The east arrow points toward 10 ou2019clock. The north arrow points toward 1 o'clock. At the bottom right corner of the image is a scale bar labeled 15 arcseconds. The image width is about 5.5 times the length of the scale bar. Below the image is a color key showing which NIRCam filters were used to create the image and which visible light color is assigned to each filter. From left to right: F115W (blue), F150W (blue), F200W (green), F277W (green), F356W (red), F444W (red).

Little Red Dot Abell2744-QSO1 (NIRCam Compass Image)

Image of Abell 2744 and Little Red Dot Abell2744-QSO1, captured by Webb’s NIRCam, with compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference.

Screenshot of vertical video showing a pixelated map above an oblique view of gas swirling around a black hole.

Little Red Dot Abell2744-QSO1: Sonification of Gas Velocity Around a Supermassive Black Hole (NIRCam and NIRSpec IFU)

A sonification is a translation of data into sound. In this sonification, the velocity of hydrogen gas moving around a black hole in the center of a Little Red Dot known as Abell2744-QSO1 (QSO1) is translated into sounds of varying pitch (or frequency). The faster the gas is movi...

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Details

Last Updated
May 27, 2026
Location
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Contact
Media

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

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