A shot of a distant galaxy cluster made for the top posts on Facebook and Twitter this week, in a break from the divisive political messaging that dominates the platforms.
There are thousands of galaxies in the SMACS-0723 cluster.
NASA published the top two U.S.-based Facebook posts this week, led by Monday's release of what the space agency said was the deepest and most detailed image of the distant universe to date.
According to data compiled by social media tracking firm NewsWhip, that post generated more than 940,000 interactions, through over 680,000 reactions and around 242,000 shares.
NASA followed up Tuesday with a series of additional shots, led by an image of "cosmic cliffs" showing stars being formed in a gargantuan dust cloud, which attracted more than 750,000 interactions.
In the form of a joke, the side-by-side image of the galaxy cluster shot drew more than one million likes, even though it was a fake.
At a White House event on Monday, President Joe Biden unveiled a picture of a cluster of stars. The light that was captured in the picture took 4.5 billion years to reach the telescope. The first images of the $10 billion telescope are the culmination of two decades of work. NASA says the telescope has enough fuel for 20 years.
It took 13 billion years. According to NASA, that's the age of the oldest light that was captured in the image. The universe is thought to be less than one billion years old.
The first image of space from a telescope.
There are more stunning images of the universe from the james wbb telescope.
Florida had a ban on math textbooks this week.
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