A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) shows that when it comes to galaxies, looks can be deceiving.
The image shows a seemingly serene orange-red galaxy, but this cosmic spiral of gas, dust and stars hides a violent past that was the debris of a massive collision between two former galaxies that occurred about 500 million years ago.
The galaxy in question is NGC 3256, which is located about 120 million light years from Earth and is a member of the Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster. Clues to the galaxy’s chaotic past are hidden in this James Webb Space Telescope image in the form of long clumps of dust and bright stars that extend outwards from the galaxy’s main body and the brighter parts of NGC 3256.
Studying these cosmic collisions can teach astronomers a lot about how galaxies like ours, the Milky Way, grow by merging with other galaxies. Since the growth of these galaxies leads to the merger and growth of black holes, studying debris like NGC 3256 could also help solve the mystery of how the supermassive black holes at the cores of most galaxies grow to millions or even billions of times their mass. from the sun.
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The historic merger that created NGC 3256 is also responsible for the galaxy’s intense burst of star formation. This happens because when galaxies collide, they funnel gas and dust together into thick clouds to become the raw material for star birth.
Young star formation can be seen as brighter regions within NGC 3256’s orange/red glow. These stars give off infrared light, emitting tiny dust grains that make the galaxy so bright and make it perfect. The JWST target, designed to view the universe in the infrared.
When galaxies collide, most stellar objects escape the violent collision unscathed, in contrast to the gas and dust content in the galaxy. This is due to the large voids between the stars. But this doesn’t apply to all the stars in the galaxy. JWST image of NGC 3256 shows stellar filaments that have been torn from their host galaxies by gravitational interactions between colliding galaxies creating tremendous tidal forces.
This stunning image of the galaxy was created by JWST using data from the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and the Medium Infrared Instrument (MIRI). Visualizing NGC 3256 in this way demonstrates the usefulness of the JWST telescope, the most powerful telescope ever placed in Earth orbit, in understanding the growth of galaxies and the evolution of the universe.
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2023-07-04 18:01:41
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