the James Webb Space Telescope The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed images of 19 Milky Way-like spiral galaxies, showing stars, gas and dust in stunning detail. The images show galaxies at the smallest scales ever observed outside our own galaxy.
“New Web Images Are Extraordinary,” Janice LeeThe scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and a member of the team studying the images in… NASA statement. “It's astounding even to researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades.”
The James Webb Space Telescope, which launched on Christmas Day 2021, is unique in its ability to capture images of objects so far away and at this level of detail. Near and mid-infrared cameras allow the telescope to “see” light in space Infrared spectrum, which is not visible to the human eye. This allows scientists to visualize dust clouds and the objects hidden within them – or things so far The light it emits is too faint for ordinary telescopes to see.
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The spiral galaxies captured by the telescope range from 15 million to 60 million light-years from Earth. Reuters mentioned. The images show these star-filled galaxies, appearing as blue pinpricks of light. Some of these stars are scattered throughout in pinwheel-like “arms”, a feature of spiral galaxies, while others are clustered in the center of the galaxies. Evidence suggests that spiral galaxies grow from the inside out, so these blue clumps in the cores of galaxies likely indicate older star clusters, while the arms likely contain younger stars, according to European Space Agency.
Also visible in the images are clouds of red and orange dust surrounding the stars. The spherical shapes may indicate the remains of exploded stars. In some images, pink and red emanate from galaxy nuclei. This light may come from a supermassive mass black holesHuge concentrations of matter with a mass hundreds of thousands of times the mass of our sun.
The new images were taken as part of a long-term project, the High Resolution Physics in Nearby Galaxies Survey (PHANGS). The project's ultimate goal is to better understand the physics of how stars form. The “unprecedented” number of stars captured in these images helps the PHANGS team achieve this goal.
“Stars can live for billions or trillions of years.” Adam LeroyAn astronomy professor at Ohio State University in Columbus and a member of the PHANGS team said in the statement. “By precisely cataloging all types of stars, we can build a more reliable and comprehensive view of their life cycles.”
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