collin hughes

ALT The background of space is black. Thousands of galaxies appear all across the view. Their shapes and colors vary. Some are various shades of orange, others are white. Most stars appear blue, and are sometimes as large as more distant galaxies that appear next to them. A very bright star is just above and left of center. It has eight bright blue, long diffraction spikes. Between 4 o’clock and 6 o’clock in its spikes are several very bright galaxies. A group of three are in the middle, and two are closer to 4 o’clock. These galaxies are part of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, and they are warping the appearances of galaxies seen around them. Long orange arcs appear at left and right toward the center.

ALT Bright stars (each with 6 spikes of light radiating from them) dominate the foreground, while the background is littered with galaxies. The image is reddish in tone, selected to optimize visual contrast. Mission managers have also been using this during Webb's commissioning to differentiate engineering images from the science images still to come.