Suggested Searches

 

1 min read

Simulated Webb Images of Quasar and Galaxy Surrounding Quasar

At left, a fuzzy grayscale image with a six-pointed white star at the center, representing a simulated observation of a quasar and its host galaxy’s light. The right shows a smaller circular white area at the center, representing only the host galaxy.

Researchers will study the galaxies that surround three bright quasars in detail for the first time with the James Webb Space Telescope. First, they will take images of each target with Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), like the simulated image shown at left. Next, they will remove the quasar’s light to reveal the galaxy and its stars, simulated at right. These observations will reveal the makeup of three galaxies in the early universe and add to what is understood about this time period, known as the Era of Reionization.

  • Release Date
    December 8, 2021
  • Science Release
    Simulated Webb Images of Quasar and Galaxy Surrounding Quasar
    Read the release
  • Credit
    Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

Downloads

  • Full Res (For Print), 2048 × 1080
    tif (720.67 KB)
  • Full Res (For Display), 2048 × 1080
    jpg (279.36 KB)

Related Images & Videos

A disk of gas fills the view of this illustration. At the center there is a black dot, which is a black hole, with a thin white line, which is a jet, extending to the top of the image. There are uneven spirals of orange gas that overlap one another from the black dot, extending off the frame. The spirals are whitest toward the center, becoming light orange and progressively darker shades of orange toward the edges of the image. At the top left corner is the surrounding black of space.

Quasar in the Early Universe (Illustration)

Researchers will use all four instruments aboard the James Webb Space Telescope to study the three most distant quasars yet discovered. They will obtain new measurements of the masses of their central supermassive black holes, detail the stars and composition of their host...

Share

Details

Last Updated
Aug 28, 2025
Contact
Media

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

Illustration Credit

NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

Related Terms

Keep Exploring

Discover More Topics From NASA

James Webb Space Telescope

Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the…

Science Overview

Webb Observatory

Webb Image Galleries