UNCOVER-z12

UNCOVER-z12 is a high-redshift Lyman-break galaxy discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) during NIRCam imaging for the JWST Ultradeep NIRSpec and NIRCam Observations before the Epoch of Reionization (UNCOVER) project in November 2023. UNCOVER-z12 is within the Abell 2744 supercluster in the constellation Sculptor. It is the 5th-most distant object ever discovered as of 2024, and is estimated to be 32.21 giga-lightyears from Earth.

Morphology
UNCOVER-z12 is a Lyman-Break galaxy. Due to the recent discovery date, not much more is known about the galaxy itself.

Discovery
UNCOVER-z12 was first observed when large amounts of gravitational lensing from Abell 2744 made the galaxy visible. Abell 2744 is around 3.5 billion light-years away from the Milky Way.

The gravity of Abell 2744 warps the fabric of space-time sufficiently to magnify the light of more faraway galaxies. The James Webb Space Telescope used the gravitational lensing to discover UNCOVER-z12, and further studies of deep galaxies located within Abell 2744 are currently ongoing.

UNCOVER-z13
UNCOVER-z13 is a second, more far-away galaxy that was located on November 14, 2023, using the same systems. It has a redshift of 13, making it the 3rd most distant object ever discovered in the observable universe.