Through the James Webb Space Telescope It was launched late last yearAstronomers have served countless missions. I say infinite why The main objective This engineering marvel doesn’t just answer all the questions about the universe. Answering questions that no one would ever think of asking.
But before we get to that amazing end goal, our awesome new goal Do your homework faithfully We gave her a chance, one of which was to break through the veil of cosmic gas and dust to reveal the secret stellar escape that lurks within. Standard optical telescopes like Hubble are often invisible.
Here it is Tuesday. JWST decoded flashing display Behind the dark curtains of space, the once dusty vault hides a pair of galaxies about 270 million light-years from Earth.
JWSD saw a bright and luminous cosmic scene.
ESA / Webb, NASA, CSA, L. Armus, A. Evans
what I see?
We have two parts named IC 1623 A and B direction of the conflict through space and time. It is located in the constellation of Cetus and has long intrigued scientists for several reasons.
Perhaps most surprisingly, they are creating a supermassive black hole – a Immense emptiness With sufficient gravity, it could warp the fabric of our universe as we know it.
But this lair of massive destruction was expected to be bound by a pendant of light.
The super-density of IC 1623 between galaxies caused the formation of a lovely nearby star-forming region. It is called a stellar explosion and, in particular, according to the European Space Agency, it is producing new stars at a speed 20 times faster than the Milky Way.
And This is JWST captured.
Hubble had already given us a first look at IC 1623 A and B, but as scientists had hoped from the start, astronomy’s new agreement with space has pierced the cosmic veil of both. By doing so, it shows us the luminous essence of this pairing and provides humanity with a complete and enchanting image of IC 1623 rather than a central part that it leaves to our imagination.
Here is a Hubble view of the merging galaxies IC 1623 A and B. It is less bright because the central parts of these regions are obscured by dark dust.
ESA / Webb, NASA, CSA, L. Armus, A. Evans
Why can JWST do what Hubble cannot?
Two words: infrared photography.
All the light emitted from deep space can be classified into a type of map called the electromagnetic spectrum. Different wavelengths of light translate into different colors in our eyes, which are found in different regions. red wavelengths on one side and blue wavelengths on the other.
But if you go beyond the red side of the electromagnetic spectrum, as some light actually does, you get infrared light.
Infrared light, unlike normal red light, is essentially invisible to the human eye. This means it is invisible to devices that act like the human eye, even to powerful versions like the Hubble Space Telescope.
But infrared light is the kind of light emitted by stars within the densest cosmic dust clouds, such as the veil surrounding IC 1623. So to find out what’s going on inside, we need a telescope to detect the infrared light. This is JWST.
This graph shows the spectrum of electromagnetic energy, highlighting in particular the regions detected by NASA’s Hubble, Spitzer and Webb space telescopes. Spitzer is now retired and no longer high tech like JWST.
NASA and c. Olmsted [STScI]
As a side note, light from stars and other phenomena far from Earth also reaches our planet as infrared light. That is why we are ready to provide you with information about JWST Distant The universe existed at the beginning of time and the information was invisible to us and the Hubble Space Telescope. Read more here.
Going back to IC 1623, “the web’s remarkable infrared sensitivity and resolution at those wavelengths allows it to see beyond the dust and produced the incredible image above in a combination of MIRI and NIRCam images,” explains the ESA. JWST high-tech tools.
The other Easter egg in this image, like all JWST images, are the eight-point diffraction peaks you see in the middle. (It appears to be six nails, but there are two small nails moving horizontally in the middle. It’s hard to see.) All JWST images have this signature, unlike Hubble’s four-point version.
Here is a diagram of what JWST diffraction peaks look like. You’ll see it in every JWST photo!
NASA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency, Leah Hostak (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
These peaks are usually most visible when there is a lot of light in the image, which explains why the last telescope image of two galactic cores contains the brightest central snowflake.
Hopefully the next time JWST focuses on its lens, it’ll be in one of those scenes with evidence of something we didn’t think we’d hear.
