Showing 5 galaxies, colloquially known as the “Stephan’s Quintet” interacting with one another, NASA has changed the face of space science forever.
Source: NASA – Stephan’s Quintet
NASA’s James Webb Telescope released a new wave of photographs of 5 galaxies which is the largest ever galactic conjugal to be captured on camera, heralding a new age. The pictures offered a glimpse of the Carina Nebula, one of the bright stellar nurseries in the sky, along with a cluster of galaxies much farther away.
According to their website, the galaxy group image is the Webb telescope’s largest image to date covering about one-fifth of the Moon’s diameter.The image contains over 150 million pixels and has been constructed from 1,000 separate image files.
The unveiling of the series began at the White House on Monday with a picture of a 4.6 billion-year-old galaxy cluster called SMACS 0723. NASA said this was the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe ever taken.
The information from Webb telescope provides new insights into how galactic interactions may have driven galaxy evolution in the early universe.
Source: stephan’s quintet – Bing images
The image captures sweeping tails of gas, dust and stars that are being pulled from several of the galaxies due to gravitational interactions and most dramatically, James Webb Space Telescope captures huge shock waves as one of the galaxies, NGC 7318B, smashes through the cluster.
The data from Webb will provide valuable, new information which will, for instance, help scientists understand the rate at which supermassive black holes feed and grow.
The James Webb Telescope:
Launched on December 25, the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s largest and most powerful space science telescope. It is equipped with a powerful array of detectors and is about 100 times more sensitive in comparison to its 30-year-old predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.
In this age of technology, we are witnessing some of the most breathtaking images of the universe that we are a part of. We must buckle-up tight on this promising journey of watching the universe up close and personal as many new mysteries are uncovered. Alas! Who knows what’s out there?
