Pandora’s Cluster, Abell 2744 - NIRCam (Annotated)

Images of Pandora’s Cluster, Abell 2744, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam).

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 (as seen from below) is flipped relative to direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above).

The scale bar is labelled in arcseconds, which is a measure of angular distance on the sky. One arc second is equal to 1/3600 of one degree of arc. (The full Moon has an angular diameter of about 0.5 degrees.) The actual size of an object that covers one arc second on the sky depends on its distance from the telescope.

This image shows invisible near-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colours. The colour key shows which NIRCam filters were used when collecting the light. The name of each filter is the visible light colour used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter.

[Image Description: Graphic titled “James Webb Space Telescope: Pandora’s Cluster, Abell 2744,” with compass arrows, scale bar, and colour key for reference.]