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arXiv · 2511.14483

VENUS: A Strongly Lensed Clumpy Galaxy at $z\sim11-12$ behind the Galaxy Cluster MACS J0257.1-2325

Minami Nakane·Vasily Kokorev·Seiji Fujimoto·Masami Ouchi·Derek J. McLeod·Miriam Golubchik·Masamune Oguri·Adi Zitrin·Cecilia Bondestam·Callum T. Donnan·Gabriel Brammer·Steven L. Finkelstein·Chris Willott·Gregor Rihtarsic·Guillaume Desprez·Angela Adamo·Eros Vanzella·Maruša Bradač·Matteo Messa·Hiroto Yanagisawa·Fengwu Sun·Henry C. Ferguson·Ray A. Lucas·Dan Coe·Johan Richard·Abdurro'uf·Hollis B. Akins·Joseph F. V. Allingham·Ricardo O. Amorín·Yoshihisa Asada·Hakim Atek·Rachel Bezanson·Larry D. Bradley·John Chisholm·Christopher J. Conselice·Pratika Dayal·Miroslava Dessauges-Zavadsky·Jose M. Diego·Andreas L. Faisst·Gavin Farley·Qinyue Fei·Brenda L. Frye·Yoshinobu Fudamoto·Lukas J. Furtak·Yuichi Harikane·Tiger Yu-Yang Hsiao·Yolanda Jiménez-Teja·Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe·Tomokazu Kiyota·Anton M. Koekemoer·Claudia del P. Lagos·Georgios E. Magdis·Ashish Kumar Meena·Lamiya Mowla·Gaël Noirot·Pascal A. Oesch·Yoshiaki Ono·Rafael Ortiz III·Richard Pan·Casey Papovich·Justin D. Pierel·Massimo Ricotti·Luke Robbins·Daniel Schaerer·Raffaella Schneider·Tommaso Treu·Francesco Valentino·Rogier A. Windhorst·Franz E. Bauer·Volker Bromm·Eiichi Egami·Mauro González-Otero·Kotaro Kohno·Ivo Labbe·Jorryt Matthee·Marcie Mun·Rohan P. Naidu·Roberta Tripodi
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Abstract

We present the discovery of a strongly lensed galaxy at $z\sim11-12$, dubbed the ``Misty Moons'', identified in the JWST Treasury Survey, Vast Exploration for Nascent, Unexplored Sources (VENUS). The Misty Moons is gravitationally lensed by the galaxy cluster MACS J0257.1-2325 at $z=0.505$, and has five multiple images suggested by two independent lensing models. Two of the five images, ID1 and ID2 ($μ\sim 20-30$), are very bright (F200W$\sim26$ AB mag) and exhibit blue SEDs with prominent Ly$α$ breaks. In the source plane, the Misty Moons is a sub-$L^*$ galaxy ($M_{\rm UV}\sim-18.0$ mag) resolved into multiple stellar clumps, each of which has an effective radius of $r_\mathrm{eff}\sim 10-70$ pc and a stellar mass of $\sim10^7\ M_\odot$. These clumps dominate the stellar mass budget of the Misty Moons ($\gtrsim80\%$), similar to other high-$z$ clumps, which suggests a highly clustered mode of star formation in the early Universe, unlike seen in local dwarf galaxies. We convolve the source-plane image with the JWST/NIRCam point-spread function to produce a mock NIRCam image of the Misty Moons without lensing magnification, and find that the intrinsic galaxy has a radial surface-brightness profile comparable to those of $z\gtrsim10$ faint galaxies, such as JADES-GS-z13-0 and JADES-GS-z14-1, indicating that the Misty Moons represents a typical $z\gtrsim10$ faint galaxy. The Misty Moons, a lensed galaxy with resolved internal structures, provides an ideal laboratory for exploring the early stages of galaxy formation at $z\gtrsim10$.

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Minami Nakane, Vasily Kokorev, Seiji Fujimoto, Masami Ouchi, Derek J. McLeod, Miriam Golubchik, Masamune Oguri, Adi Zitrin, Cecilia Bondestam, Callum T. Donnan, Gabriel Brammer, Steven L. Finkelstein, Chris Willott, Gregor Rihtarsic, Guillaume Desprez, Angela Adamo, Eros Vanzella, Maruša Bradač, Matteo Messa, Hiroto Yanagisawa, Fengwu Sun, Henry C. Ferguson, Ray A. Lucas, Dan Coe, Johan Richard, Abdurro'uf, Hollis B. Akins, Joseph F. V. Allingham, Ricardo O. Amorín, Yoshihisa Asada, Hakim Atek, Rachel Bezanson, Larry D. Bradley, John Chisholm, Christopher J. Conselice, Pratika Dayal, Miroslava Dessauges-Zavadsky, Jose M. Diego, Andreas L. Faisst, Gavin Farley, Qinyue Fei, Brenda L. Frye, Yoshinobu Fudamoto, Lukas J. Furtak, Yuichi Harikane, Tiger Yu-Yang Hsiao, Yolanda Jiménez-Teja, Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe, Tomokazu Kiyota, Anton M. Koekemoer, Claudia del P. Lagos, Georgios E. Magdis, Ashish Kumar Meena, Lamiya Mowla, Gaël Noirot, Pascal A. Oesch, Yoshiaki Ono, Rafael Ortiz III, Richard Pan, Casey Papovich, Justin D. Pierel, Massimo Ricotti, Luke Robbins, Daniel Schaerer, Raffaella Schneider, Tommaso Treu, Francesco Valentino, Rogier A. Windhorst, Franz E. Bauer, Volker Bromm, Eiichi Egami, Mauro González-Otero, Kotaro Kohno, Ivo Labbe, Jorryt Matthee, Marcie Mun, Rohan P. Naidu, Roberta Tripodi. 2026-07-22. VENUS: A Strongly Lensed Clumpy Galaxy at $z\sim11-12$ behind the Galaxy Cluster MACS J0257.1-2325. https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.14483

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