It’s been months since the James Webb Space Telescope captured beautiful images of the universe, but an amazing treatment of nearby galaxies has brought a universe the size of a $10 billion tennis court back into shape. I did.
This image released today by NASA, ESA, and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) shows the star-forming region of the Triangular Galaxy, also known as M33, visible next to the more famous Andromeda Galaxy (M31). can.
The distance is approximately 2.7 million light years. In other words, the JWST image is a recreation of what she looked like 2.7 million years ago, which is the same amount of time it takes for that light to reach the space telescope’s camera.
massive stars
The colorful image shows NGC 604, a nebula containing more than 200 stars that is about 3.5 million years old. That makes them very young stars.
These are some of the largest and hottest stars you can find in the night sky. Some of these B- and O-type stars have masses more than 100 times that of the Sun. It is rare in the universe that such huge stars are found at such a high density. NGC 604 has a diameter of approximately 1,300 light years.
new details
The data was acquired using JWST’s two imagers, the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), and NASA and ESA released the composite image as well as the individual images.
Of course, NGC 604 has been imaged before, but the JWST data reveals new details. You can see diffused filaments of red gas and huge bubbles within the gas. It is from this gas that stars are formed. However, the star’s gravity creates gaps in the gas. The image also shows hydrogen molecules and carbon-based molecules (called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), two of the star’s building blocks.
JWST was launched on Christmas Day 2021 and is monitoring the universe from a point called L2, where the gravity of the Earth and the sun combine to create a stable place. From Earth he is a million miles away, about four times the distance from Earth to the Moon.
I wish you clear skies and big eyes.
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