The James Webb Space Telescope photographed a collision of two galaxies that is causing a burst of star formation invisible to other telescopes.
The wave of star the birth was triggered by the meeting of two galaxies known by the common name IC 1623. The merging pair is producing stars at a rate 20 times faster than our own. Milky Way galaxy, the scientists said.
The galactic shock was previously imaged by other telescopes, including Webb’s predecessor Hubble Space Telescope, which specializes in detecting optical light (the types of wavelengths visible to the human eye). But because IC 1623 is shrouded in a thick shield of dust, astronomers hadn’t been able to peer deeper into the galaxies to see stars in formation.
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The merged galaxy pair known as IC 1623 imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope. (Image credit: ESA/Webb, NASA and CSA, L. Armus and A. Evans)
The James Webb Space Telescopewith its dust-penetrating infrared gaze easily cut through the shroud, revealing a luminous center that emits so much infrared light (essentially heat) that the galaxy produces the characteristic eight-point refraction pattern commonly seen in images of Webb containing brilliants. stars
Compared to an earlier Hubble image of IC 1623, Webb’s view reveals an entirely new layer in the structure of the merging galaxies, which is represented as the central bulk of bright red and orange material in the image .
The earlier image of the merged galactic pair taken by the Hubble Space Telescope reveals a much dimmer formation. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans (University of Virginia, Charlottesville/NRAO/Stony Brook University))
The two galaxies in this image are about 270 million light years away from land in the constellation of Cetus. Astronomers believe the merger may also be producing a supermassive black holewhich, however, is not visible in this image.
The image was created from a combination of data captured by three of Webb’s four instruments, the MIRI and NIRCam cameras and the NIRSpec spectrometersaid the European Space Agency, which released the image on Tuesday (October 25), in a statement (opens in a new tab).
A to study (opens in a new tab) describing the observations was recently published in the Astrophysical Journal.
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