Look: JWST captures a galaxy cluster that could solve a dark matter mystery

The early universe is full of secrets.

Thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers are able to peer further into the cosmic past than ever before.

Writing in an upcoming report in Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers described how they used JWST to view a single galaxy, and ended up bringing three new ones into view.

They also got a sharper look at the striking center of the galactic cluster: an ancient quasar.

Quasars are powerful, extremely bright objects that are fueled by a supermassive black hole gobbling up gas and dust.

The quasar at the center of this cluster is estimated to be around 11.5 billion years old.

It’s one of the most powerful known quasars for its age.

When it was imaged previously by the Hubble Space Telescope, researchers thought the quasar was interacting with something nearby, but they couldn’t see what it was.

Researchers think the region also holds a lot of dark matter since the three new galaxies orbit quickly around each other and are crammed together in space.

“Even a dense knot of dark matter isn’t sufficient to explain it. We think we could be seeing a region where two massive halos of dark matter are merging together.”