He has been carrying out scientific operations for less than a month, but James Webb of NASA is surprising again with his view of the universe.
The super space telescope has now peered into the chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy, revealing new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole.
Its powerful infrared gaze produced a detailed image of the Cartwheel and two smaller companion galaxies against a backdrop of many other galaxies.
Located about 500 million light years away in the constellation of the Sculptor, the Chariot Wheel galaxy is a rare sight.
Its appearance, very similar to that of a wagon wheel, is the result of an intense event: a high-speed collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy not visible in this image.
Other telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, have previously examined the Cartwheel.
But the dramatic galaxy has been shrouded in mystery, perhaps literally, given the amount of dust obscuring the view.
Fireworks: The James Webb Space Telescope surprises again with its view of the universe. It has peered into the chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy (pictured), revealing new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole.
This Webb Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image shows a group of galaxies, including a large, distorted ring-shaped galaxy known as the Cartwheel.
JAMES WEBB TELESCOPE INSTRUMENTS
NIRCam (Near InfraRed Camera) infrared imaging from the edge of the visible through the near infrared
NIRSpec (Near InfraRed Spectrograph) will also perform spectroscopy in the same range of wavelengths.
MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument) will measure the mid-to-long infrared wavelength range from 5 to 27 micrometers.
FGS/NIRISS (Fine Guidance Sensor and Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph), is used to stabilize the observatory’s line of sight during scientific observations.
Webb, with his ability to detect infrared light, now uncovers new insights into the nature of the Cartwheel.
The Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), Webb’s primary imager, looks in the near-infrared range from 0.6 to 5 microns, seeing crucial wavelengths of light that can reveal even more stars than those observed in visible light.
This is because young stars, many of which are forming in the outer ring, are less obscured by the presence of dust when viewed in infrared light. In this image, the NIRCam data are colored blue, orange and yellow.
The galaxy shows many individual blue dots, which are individual stars or pockets of star formation.
NIRCam also reveals the difference between the smooth shape or distribution of the oldest star populations and the dense dust in the core compared to the lumpy shapes associated with the younger star populations outside it.
The image from the $10 billion (£7.4 billion) observatory also provides a new insight into how the Cartwheel Galaxy has changed over billions of years.
Collisions of galactic proportions cause a cascade of different, smaller events between the galaxies involved; the Cartwheel is no exception.
The collision most notably affected the shape and structure of the galaxy.
The Cartwheel Galaxy has two rings: a bright inner ring and a colorful ring surrounding it. These rings expand outward from the center of the collision, like ripples in a pond after a stone is thrown into it.
Because of these distinctive features, astronomers call it a “ring galaxy,” a less common structure than spiral galaxies like our Milky Way.
The bright core contains a large amount of hot dust, and the brightest areas are home to gigantic young star clusters.
On the other hand, the outer ring, which has been expanding for about 440 million years, is dominated by star formation and supernovae. As this ring expands, it enters the surrounding gas and triggers star formation.
The $10bn (£7.4bn) observatory (pictured) provided a new insight into how the Cartwheel Galaxy has changed over billions of years
Webb’s infrared capabilities allow it to “see back in time” to the Big Bang, which happened 13.8 billion years ago. Light waves travel extremely fast, about 186,000 miles (300,000 km) per second, every second. The further away an object is, the further back in time we are looking. This is because of the time it takes for light to travel from the object to us
However, learning finer details about the dust inhabiting the galaxy requires Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
The MIRI data are colored red in this composite image, revealing regions within the Cartwheel Galaxy rich in hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds, as well as silicate dust, like much of Earth’s dust.
These regions form a series of spiral radii that essentially form the skeleton of the galaxy.
The radii are evident in previous Hubble observations released in 2018, but they become much more prominent in this Webb image.
While Webb gives us a snapshot of the current state of the Chariot’s Wheel, it also provides insight into what happened to this galaxy in the past and how it will evolve in the future.
Last month, the telescope’s dazzling and unprecedented images of a “stellar nursery”, a dying star covered in dust and a “cosmic dance” between a cluster of galaxies were revealed to the world for the first time.
It ended months of feverish anticipation and anticipation as people around the world received the first batch of a treasure trove of images that will culminate in the first glimpse of the dawn of the universe.
Webb’s infrared capabilities mean it can “see back in time” to just 100-200 million years after the Big Bang, allowing it to capture images of the first stars to shine in the universe more than 13.5 billion years.
His first images of nebulae, an exoplanet and galaxy clusters sparked a huge celebration in the scientific world, in what was hailed as a “great day for mankind”.
Researchers will soon begin to learn more about the masses, ages, histories and compositions of galaxies as Webb seeks to explore the earliest galaxies in the universe.
The James Webb Telescope: NASA’s $10 billion telescope is designed to detect light from the first stars and galaxies
The James Webb Telescope has been described as a ‘time machine’ that could help unlock the secrets of our universe.
The telescope will be used to look back to the first galaxies born in the early universe more than 13.5 billion years ago, and observe the sources of stars, exoplanets and even the moons and planets of our solar system.
The vast telescope, which has already cost more than $7 billion (£5 billion), is seen as a successor to the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope.
The James Webb Telescope and most of its instruments have an operating temperature of about 40 Kelvin, about minus 387 Fahrenheit (minus 233 Celsius).
It is the largest and most powerful orbiting space telescope in the world, capable of looking back 100 to 200 million years after the Big Bang.
The orbiting infrared observatory is designed to be about 100 times more powerful than its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA likes to think of James Webb as a successor to Hubble rather than a replacement, as the two will work in tandem for some time.
The Hubble telescope was launched on April 24, 1990 by the space shuttle Discovery from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
It circles the Earth at a speed of about 17,000 mph (27,300 km/h) in low Earth orbit at an altitude of about 340 miles.