The James Webb Space Telescope has scrutinized the Pillars of Creation, the stunning dust cloud formations made famous by its predecessor, the Hubble Space Telescope.
The image is not only stunningly beautiful, but it also reveals cosmic processes that have never before been observed with such clarity. This is what astronomers see behind the shimmering, colorful fabric.
If you want to enjoy its charm James Webb space telescopePillars of Creation Image, you must download the original image from the website of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, which manages the mission’s science operations. This is not a small file. At around 150MB, it can clog your internet connection for a while. Then zoom in on the darker area above the column. Zoom in a bit, until you see a red dot appear in the view. There are many. The smaller ones are just red spots. Others are somewhat larger, flower-like with a yellow center surrounded by six red petals, sometimes with a refractive pattern like Webb’s snowflakes.
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A star was born…
This flower formation is just born bintangCreation within the Pillar of Creation was revealed for the first time. For the ancestors of the web, file Hubble Space Telescopeobserving the universe mostly in visible light (the wavelengths the human eye can see), these spots are impenetrable, threatening the dark formations rising from Eagle Nebulaa cluster of cloudy stars in the constellation of Serpents below 6000 light year far from the earth. But Webb, with his infrared gaze and heat detector, looked into the darkness to reveal how bright it was … Universe Born.
“The most interesting thing about this image is that it shows us the star formation process,” Anton Quiquemore, research astronomer at STScI, told Space.com.
Koekemoer brings together stunning images from raw data captured by Webb’s powerful NIRCam camera. The stunning image of the universe is Koekemoer’s bread and butter, who previously worked on image processing from the Hubble Space Telescope. However, astronomers admit that the texture, level of detail and amount of scientific information contained in web images even amaze him.
“I was amazed at how well Webb could see in really dark dust and gas with Hubble,” said Kwiquimore. “With Hubble, you don’t see any details. But Webb, with his infrared vision, was able to penetrate directly into this region and see the stars forming inside the dust plume. This is very interesting.”
… from the cold dark dust
Professor Derek Ward Thompson shares Cockemore’s enthusiasm. Veteran astronomer and president of the School of Natural Sciences at the University of Central Lancashire in England, Ward Thompson has published numerous scientific articles on the pillars of creation over the years, including some of the strong magnetic fields that underpinned the formation. together. However, he said, the first thought of him after seeing the first web images of his favorite cosmic hydrogen cloud was a little unscientific.
“I just thought ‘wow’,” Ward Thompson told Space.com. “It really made me realize how much better the James Webb Space Telescope is than the Hubble Telescope, which can only see outside. It also provides much better detail and much higher resolution. “
Ward Thompson says Webb’s images provide a unique window into dark, icy clouds where stellar embryos are incubated by hydrogen-rich dust. For the first time, astronomers can not only theorize about this process, but they can also study it in dozens of examples of different sizes and brightness levels.
“I believe Webb’s images will improve our understanding of how stars are formed and, therefore, where our sun comes from,” said Ward Thompson.
The red dots visible in the web image are protostars and cocoons of dust and gas so dense that they crumble together under their own weight. severity. When the clouds collapse, they form spinning spheres, which will eventually become so dense that the hydrogen atoms in their nuclei will begin to fuse together in the nuclear fusion process, causing the stars to glow.
Ward Thompson said the protostars Webb saw weren’t fully present yet, starting to glow with infrared light as they warmed above the surrounding colder clouds, which were no less than minus 390 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 200 degrees Celsius). .
“The young stars we see in this image are not yet burning hydrogen,” said Ward Thompson. “But gradually, as more and more matter fell, the medium became more and more dense, and then suddenly it became so dense that the combustion of hydrogen started, and then suddenly the temperature rose to about two million degrees Celsius. . [35 million degrees F]. “
In some of the largest bright red spots in the image, several stars explode simultaneously. Elsewhere, the heat did not penetrate the surrounding dust.
Ward Thompson said the Pillar of Creation is one of the closest active star formation areas to Earth, which means that, combined with the power of Webb’s imagery, the site offers the best opportunity to study star formation processes. .
15,000 pixels
Each red dot that you can only see when you zoom in on the image covers a larger area than ours Solar system. The entire image, at 15,000 pixels wide, captures an area of 8-9 light years.
“You can solve things that are the size of our solar system in pictures,” Koekemoer said. “If there were individual planets like Jupiter, you wouldn’t be able to solve them.”
The images, which Koekemoer compiled from the data acquired by NIRCam in six different filters, show columns with different colors than those seen by the human eye. The only wavelengths in the image that the human eye can detect are the red wavelengths, which are represented by the blue color in the image.
“Yellow, green, orange and red are transmitted at mid-infrared wavelengths,” said Kwiquimore. “The wavelength in this image is six times longer than what the human eye can see.”
With each color comes a different component of the physical processes that take place in the amazing nebula. The blue plume of gas and dust that radiates like a thin barrier from the edge of the nebula is a cloud of ionized hydrogen: hydrogen electrons are ejected from colder hydrogen atoms and form thick dark clouds from the intense ultraviolet light flowing from a nearby massive star.
The physics behind the pillar
By being able to reveal the structure of dust clouds of unprecedented hue and texture, astronomers will also be able to study the processes that have sculpted towering clouds for millions of years.
“The material that the pillars are made of is what we call the interstellar medium, the interstellar medium,” said Ward Thompson. It becomes more transparent as you work longer [infrared] wavelength. The Hubble images only tell us where the material is, but Webb now shows us where it is thickest and where it is thinnest. It’s almost like x-raying a person. “
Astronomers know that the blob is not a stable cosmic sculpture, but an ever-changing flow of material, similar to the changing surface of a sandy beach. Ward Thompson said what formed the clot was a strong stellar wind from a large star cluster, which is not visible in this image. A strong cosmic magnetic field holds the clouds together, protecting them from being scattered by stellar winds. However, in a few million years, the pillar will no longer resemble the iconic image we see today.
For Webb, The Pillars is just the beginning and offers just a taste of what a $ 10 billion telescope can achieve.
“Everyone in the astronomy community is really excited about Webb’s future,” said Kwiquimore. “I think there will be more observations that will show us a lot more about how stars and galaxies are formed.”
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