The James Webb Space Telescope’s latest discovery is ground-breaking – if it was anywhere near to Earth.
Incredible images taken by the telescope have given scientists stepping stones to learn more about how stars and galaxies are formed. The photos, released by NASA, show 19 spiral galaxies that are close to the formation of the Milky Way.
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), was able to capture the impressive images that are usually hidden behind gas and dust clouds. Scientists haven’t been able to see them previously when using older technology, such as the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA even released them alongside older images taken by Hubble to show the comparisons. JWST is more powerful than its predecessor because its larger primary mirror has six times the light-gathering power. It also has a Near-Infrared Camera and Mid-Infrared Instrument, so its infrared vision is deeper than Hubble, too.
The Hubble Telescope was launched back in 1990 and captures both ultraviolet and visible light in the skies. Whereas JWST, which was launched three years ago, has more advanced technology.
The mind-blowing new images are a huge step in science because they’ve picked up what’s invisible to the naked eye. Scientists then assign colors to data points from the images to visualise them, and create the ‘representative colour image’. The team added colors to each filter used to differentiate between them.
The light blue dots are older stars, and the orange and red are gas and dust.
However, the dark gaps in between are a mystery, but Adam Leroy, an astronomy professor from Ohio State University believes the gaps were created by one or more stars exploding.
“[They could have] carved out giant holes in the interstellar material,” he explained.
“Webb’s new images are extraordinary,” Janice Lee, project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said.
“They’re mind-blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades. Bubbles and filaments are resolved down to the smallest scales ever observed, and tell a story about the star formation cycle.”
Erik Rosolowsky, an astronomer from the University of Alberta said: “Using Hubble, we would see the starlight from galaxies, but some of the light was blocked by the dust of galaxies.
“With Webb’s view in the infrared, we can see through this dust to see stars behind and within the enshrouding dust.”
Rosolowsky added new stars can be hiding in between the dusty peaks, even those not yet fully formed. He added: “These are where we can find the newest, most massive stars in the galaxies”.
The closest of the 19 galaxies captured is around 15 million light-years from Earth, and the most distant is 60 million.
Dr Leroy says this is an exciting step for the researchers.
“Stars can live for billions or trillions of years,” he said.
“By precisely cataloguing all types of stars, we can build a more reliable, holistic view of their life cycles.”
