About ESA
The European Space Agency (ESA) is Europe’s gateway to space. Its mission is to shape the development of Europe’s space capability and ensure that investment in space continues to deliver benefits to the citizens of Europe and the world.
Highlights
Latest
Space in Member States
Find out more about space activities in our 23 Member States, and understand how ESA works together with their national agencies, institutions and organisations.
Germany
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Spain
Estonia
Finland
France
Greece
Hungary
Ireland
Italy
Luxembourg
Norway
The Netherlands
Poland
Portugal
Czechia
Romania
United Kingdom
Slovenia
Sweden
Switzerland
Science & Exploration
Exploring our Solar System and unlocking the secrets of the Universe
Go to topicAstronauts
Latest
Enabling & Support
Making space accessible and developing the technologies for the future
Go to topicLatest
Webb observes the Hubble Ultra Deep Field
On 11 October 2022, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope spent over 20 hours observing the long-studied Ultra Deep Field of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope for the first time. The general observer program (GO 1963) focused on analysing the field in wavelengths between approximately 2 and 4 microns. This image was taken by the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam). Hubble’s view is presented on the left and Webb’s view is presented on the right.
The Webb image observes the field at depths comparable to Hubble – revealing galaxies of similar faintness – in just one-tenth as much observing time. It includes 1.8-micron light shown in blue, 2.1-micron light shown in green, 4.3-micron light shown in yellow, 4.6-micron light shown in orange, and 4.8-micron light shown in red (filters F182M, F210M, F430M, F460M, and F480M).
The Hubble image required 800 exposures taken over the course of 400 Hubble orbits around Earth. The total amount of exposure time was 11.3 days, taken between 24 September 2003 and 16 January 2004.
Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process.
[Image Description: Two images are shown side-by-side of the same field of galaxies. On the left is the image from the Hubble Space Telescope. On the right is the image from the James Webb Space Telescope. Both images contain thousands of galaxies in various sizes, shapes, and colours.]
