Scientists have been given an unprecedented glimpse into the birth of stars and the early stages of the universe, after a new image showing a cluster more than 10bn years ago was released by the James Webb space telescope.
The image shows a young cluster of stars, known as NGC 346, which is more than 200,000 light years from Earth.
Scientists have taken a particular interest in the cluster, which is in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), because it resembles the conditions of the early universe when star formation was at its peak.
Astronomers hope that studying the region could give more answers as to how the first stars formed during the “cosmic noon”, only 2 or 3 billion years after the big bang.