Stars are being born in a stellar new image from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The telescope imaged the 1,630-light-year-wide nebula N79. It is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our own Milky Way galaxy that is almost 200,000 light-years away from Earth. It’s possible that the LMC could crash into our home galaxy–in about two billion years.
[Related: Astronomers spot an extragalactic star with a disc around it for the first time.]
The image uses orange, yellow, and blue filters to showcase star nurseries forming new stars. It is still being explored by astronomers. JWST’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument took the image that features interstellar atomic hydrogen.
Seeing ‘starbursts’ more clearly
This new image hones in on a region called N79 South, or S1. The area is made up of three giant bunches of cold atomic gas called molecular clouds. The bright starburst effect at the center is due to the diffraction spikes caused by the 18 pieces that make JWST’s primary mirror as they collect light. Since these mirrors are put together in a hexagon, there are six main diffraction spikes.
“Patterns like these are only noticeable around very bright, compact objects, where all the light comes from the same place,” the European Space Agency (ESA) wrote in a press release. “Most galaxies, even though they appear very small to our eyes, are darker and more spread out than a single star, and therefore do not show this pattern.”
When JWST looks at galaxies that may appear small, more light is visible with the help of how these mirrors are arranged and work.
The telescope’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument also captures light at longer wavelengths and this new view uses that to showcase N79’s glowing gas and dust. Mid-infrared light can reveal what is going on deep inside these gas and dust clouds. Shorter wavelengths of light would be scattered or absorbed by the nebula’s dust grains.
Nebula…
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