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The James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope observe the beingness successful antithetic wavelengths, and combining their information has fixed astronomers a elaborate look astatine the interstellar particulate successful a brace of galaxies
Space 5 October 2022By Leah Crane
An elliptical postulation (left) and a spiral postulation (right) seen by JWST and Hubble NASA, ESA, CSA, Rogier Windhorst (ASU), William Keel (University of Alabama), Stuart Wyithe (University of Melbourne), JWST PEARLS Team
Astronomers person combined information from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Hubble Space Telescope to make a stunning representation of a brace of galaxies astir 700 cardinal airy years away. Together, these 2 almighty telescopes – the astir powerful we have, successful information – person allowed america to hint the interstellar particulate winding its mode done the 2 galaxies.
The 2 telescopes observe utilizing antithetic wavelengths of airy – JWST successful infrared and Hubble successful disposable and ultraviolet. Combining their information is allowing astronomers to get a much implicit thought of the processes wrong the galaxies. While we could spot this galaxy pair, called VV191, with Hubble alone, the summation of JWST information brings the details into stark relief, peculiarly the clouds of particulate streaming retired beyond the spiral arms of the postulation connected the right.
“Webb’s near-infrared information besides amusement america the galaxy’s longer, highly dusty spiral arms successful acold much detail, giving the arms an quality of overlapping with the cardinal bulge of the agleam achromatic elliptical postulation connected the left,” said Rogier Windhorst astatine Arizona State University successful a NASA blog post. “Although the 2 foreground galaxies are comparatively adjacent astronomically speaking, they are not actively interacting.”
Dust successful galaxies is cardinal to the enactment of caller stars and planets, truthful tracing its beingness whitethorn assistance america recognize however and wherever those objects form. Pinning down wherever the particulate is present tin besides assistance uncover the past of a galaxy.
While the 2 foreground galaxies are attention-grabbing, they are not the lone absorbing portion of this image. Near the bosom of the elliptical galaxy, determination are 2 faint reddish arcs. These are some airy from the same, adjacent much distant postulation located down this pair, stretched by the gravity of the person 1 successful a process called gravitational lensing.
“These images of the lensed postulation are truthful faint and truthful reddish that they went unrecognized successful Hubble data, but are unmistakable successful Webb’s near-infrared image,” said Windhorst. There are besides galore distant galaxies successful the inheritance of this representation – arsenic determination are in astir each JWST image – that person ne'er been seen before.
Reference: arxiv.org/abs/2208.14475
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