James Webb Space Telescope eyes Hubble Ultra Deep Field in stunning detail (photo)

This image of the Hubble Ultra Deep Field was taken by the Near-Infrared Camera on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The Webb image observes the field at depths comparable to Hubble — revealing galaxies of similar faintness — in just one-tenth as much observing time. (Image credit: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Christina Williams (NSF's NOIRLab), S. Tacchella (Cambridge), Michael Maseda (UW-Madison). Image processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI))

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has turned its sharp eyes on a distant patch of sky made famous by its predecessor.

A newly released JWST photo captures the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF), a faraway region in the southern constellation Fornax (the Furnace). The HUDF has long been "an extremely fertile hunting ground" for astronomers, as it contains at least 10,000 galaxies dating back to just 800 million years after the Big Bang, providing a glimpse into how the very first galaxies may have formed.