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Zoom to the Sunrise Arc

Travel to the massive galaxy cluster called WHL0137-08, which contains the most strongly magnified galaxy known in the universe’s first billion years: the Sunrise Arc, and within that galaxy, the most distant star ever detected. The journey begins with a ground-based image by astrophotographer Akira Fujii, then transitions into a plate from the Digitized Sky Survey. Next, an image from the Dark Energy Camera on the Victor M. Blanco observatory appears, and then finally the video arrives at the James Webb Space Telescope’s image of the galaxy cluster.

  • Release Date
    August 9, 2023
  • Science Release
    Webb Reveals Colors of Earendel, Most Distant Star Ever Detected
    Read the release
  • Credit
    Video: NASA, ESA, CSA, Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Acknowledgment: NSF's NOIRLab, DSS, Akira Fujii

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  • Video: 1920 × 1080, 30 FPS
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  • Image: Poster Image, 1280 × 720
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Related Images & Videos

A black background is scattered with hundreds of small galaxies of different shapes, ranging in color from white to yellow to red. Some galaxies, mostly the redder galaxies, are distorted, appearing to be stretched out or mirror imaged. Just a little bit above the center, there is a bright source of light, a star, with 8 bright diffraction spikes extending out from it. Below the star are several noticeably fuzzy white galaxies that resemble cotton balls – these are part of a galaxy cluster. To the lower right of the star is a particularly long, red, thin line stretching from one o’clock to 7 o’clock. This is the Sunrise Arc.

Sunrise Arc (NIRCam Image)

This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope of a massive galaxy cluster called WHL0137-08 contains the most strongly magnified galaxy known in the universe’s first billion years: the Sunrise Arc, and within that galaxy, the most distant star ever detected. The star,...

The image is split in half vertically to create two images. In the left image, a black background is scattered with hundreds of small galaxies of different shapes, ranging in color from white to yellow to red. Some galaxies, mostly the redder galaxies, are distorted, appearing to be stretched out or mirror imaged. Just a little bit above the center, there is a bright source of light, a star, with 8 bright diffraction spikes extending out from it. The right image is a zoomed-in portion of the image at the left, showing a particularly long, red, thin line that stretches from 1 o’clock to 7 o’clock. There are several bright dots, some thicker than others, along this line, with one labeled as Earendel.

Sunrise Arc Zoom-In (NIRCam Image)

This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows a massive galaxy cluster called WHL0137-08, and at the right, an inset of the most strongly magnified galaxy known in the universe’s first billion years: the Sunrise Arc. Within that galaxy is the most distant star ever...

Image titled “James Webb Space Telescope; WHL J013719.8-082841” with compass arrows, scale bar, and color key. In the center is a near-infrared image of a field of galaxies with one very bright star. At the lower left are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The east arrow points toward 7 o’clock. The north arrow points toward 11 o’clock. At the bottom right is a scale bar labeled 30 arcseconds. The length of the scale bar is about one tenth of the total image. 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. NIRCam filters from left to right: F090W, F115W, and F150W are blue; F200W is cyan, F277W is green; F356W is yellow, F410M is orange, and F444W is red.

Sunrise Arc (NIRCam Compass Image)

This is an image of the WHL0137-08 galaxy cluster, which includes the Sunrise Arc galaxy, with compass arrows, scale bar and color key. The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky...

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Details

Last Updated
Aug 28, 2025
Contact
Media

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

Video Credit

NASA, ESA, CSA, Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Acknowledgment Credit

NSF’s NOIRLab, DSS, Akira Fujii

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