Newly released images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope show a dense field of galaxies and stars, with distant spiral galaxies standing out in stunning detail.
big galaxy LEDA 2046648 at the bottom of the image says james webb space telescope (JWST or Webb) Image showing individual spiral arms. This level of detail is even more impressive considering that the galaxy in question in the constellation Hercules is more than a billion light years away from her. earth and JWST.
This particular image also shows many other galaxies and stars, all marked by the six diffraction spikes characteristic of the JWST observation. This image was captured by JWST’s near-infrared camera (NIRCam) while the telescope was observing a celestial body. white dwarf WD1657+343 is a well-studied object that JWST observed to calibrate its near-infrared imager and slitless spectrograph (NIRISS).
Related: Best James Webb Space Telescope Images Ever (Gallery)
(Images released on Tuesday (January 31st) are probably from before January 15th. Something went wrong with NIRISS This made the equipment unusable. NIRISS resumed normal operations on Monday (January 30th). A NASA official said.)
Other galaxies in the image are not only smaller than LEDA 2046648, but some of them are farther away, offering a deeper field of view. universethe history of. One of the main purposes of JWST is to observe distant galaxies. Some galaxies are much further away than LEDA 2046648, allowing us to look back into the early Universe.
This historical insight is possible because light takes a finite amount of time to reach Earth from distant galaxies. So viewing these galaxies is akin to seeing them when the light has gone, sometimes early in her 13.8 billion year history of the galaxy.Space about 300 million years later big bang.
But the light from these galaxies is unchanged during its billions of years of journey to reach JWST’s 21-foot-wide (6.5-meter) gold-plated primary mirror.
The expansion of the universe stretches the wavelength of this light, reducing its energy from the visible spectrum into infrared light. This process is called “redshift,” It moves light toward the red end of the electromagnetic spectrum.
This phenomenon makes JWST’s infrared detection capabilities ideal for studying redshifted light from ancient galaxies and identifying details of their formation, evolution and composition.
Astronomers can compare the structure of these distant, ancient galaxies to that seen near our own galactic home, the Milky Way. milky wayit exists in a more modern era of the universe.
This comparison could help reveal how galaxies grew to form the structures we see in the universe today. In addition, light from distant galaxies can help reveal their chemical composition, telling astronomers how and when heavy elements formed, and how they could be found in later galaxies thanks to their enrichment from stellar explosions. shows how abundant
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