Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

James Webb captures a gorgeous stellar nursery in nearby dwarf galaxy

Georgina Torbet
By

A gorgeous new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a stunning sight from one of our galactic neighbors. The image shows a region of star formation called NGC 346, where new stars are being born. It’s located in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is a satellite galaxy to the Milky Way.

The star-forming region of the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC) was previously imaged by the Hubble Space Telescope in 2005, but this new image gives a different view as it is taken in the infrared wavelength by Webb instead of the optical light wavelength used by Hubble.

This new infrared image of NGC 346 from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) traces emission from cool gas and dust. In this image blue represents silicates and sooty chemical molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. More diffuse red emission shines from warm dust heated by the brightest and most massive stars in the heart of the region. Bright patches and filaments mark areas with abundant numbers of protostars. This image includes 7.7-micron light shown in blue, 10 microns in cyan, 11.3 microns in green, 15 microns in yellow, and 21 microns in red (770W, 1000W, 1130W, 1500W, and 2100W filters, respectively).
This new infrared image of NGC 346 taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) traces emissions from cool gas and dust. In this image, blue represents silicates and sooty chemical molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. More diffuse red emission shines from warm dust heated by the brightest and most massive stars in the heart of the region. Bright patches and filaments mark areas with abundant numbers of protostars. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Nolan Habel (NASA-JPL); Image Processing: Patrick Kavanagh (Maynooth University)

This image was taken using the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), Webb’s instrument that operates in the mid-infrared range. Unlike the other three instruments, which operate in the near-infrared, MIRI is particularly suited to highlighting dust and the intricate structures that it forms. The colors here represent different processes, as red shows the warm dust that is heated by bright nearby stars, while the blue regions represent areas dominated by molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

Recommended Videos

You can see the contrast in how objects look at different wavelengths by comparing this image taken with MIRI to a previous James Webb image of the same region taken with its NIRCam instrument.

NGC 346, shown here in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a dynamic star cluster that lies within a nebula 200,000 light years away. Webb reveals the presence of many more building blocks than previously expected, not only for stars, but also planets, in the form of clouds packed with dust and hydrogen. 
NGC 346, shown here in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a dynamic star cluster that lies within a nebula 200,000 light-years away. SCIENCE: NASA, ESA, CSA, Olivia C. Jones (UK ATC), Guido De Marchi (ESTEC), Margaret Meixner (USRA) IMAGE PROCESSING: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Nolan Habel (USRA), Laura Lenkić (USRA), Laurie E. U. Chu (NASA Ames)

This image focuses on the near-infrared, which is ideal for highlighting the presence of stars and the arcs of gas in the region, which is primarily hydrogen.

Related

“By combining Webb data in both the near-infrared and mid-infrared, astronomers are able to take a fuller census of the stars and protostars within this dynamic region,” Webb scientists explain. “The results have implications for our understanding of galaxies that existed billions of years ago, during an era in the universe known as ‘cosmic noon,’ when star formation was at its peak and heavy element concentrations were lower, as seen in the SMC.”

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
James Webb snaps an image of the famous and beautiful Crab Nebula
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has gazed at the Crab Nebula in the search for answers about the supernova remnant’s origins. Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) have revealed new details in infrared light.

Located 6,500 light-years away, the Crab Nebula is famous among astronomers for its elaborate and beautiful structure. A new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows off the gorgeous nebula as seen in the infrared wavelength, highlighting the filaments of dust that create its cage-like shape.

The nebula is a supernova remnant, the result of a massive star that exploded at the end of its life centuries ago. The supernova was observed on Earth in 1054 CE, and since then astronomers have watched the nebula that resulted from that explosion grow and change.

Read more
James Webb observes merging stars creating heavy elements
This image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument highlights GRB 230307A’s kilonova and its former home galaxy among their local environment of other galaxies and foreground stars. The neutron stars were kicked out of their home galaxy and travelled the distance of about 120,000 light-years, approximately the diameter of the Milky Way galaxy, before finally merging several hundred million years later.

In its earliest stages, the universe was composed mostly of hydrogen and helium. All of the other, heavier elements that make up the universe around us today were created over time, and it is thought that they were created primarily within stars. Stars create heavy elements within them in the process of fusion, and when these stars reach the ends of their lives they may explode in supernovas, spreading these elements in the environment around them.

That's how heavier elements like those up to iron are created. But for the heaviest elements, the process is thought to be different. These are created not within stellar cores, but in extreme environments such as the merging of stars, when massive forces create exceedingly dense environments that forge new elements.

Read more
The Siena Galaxy Atlas now catalogs 400,000 nearby galaxies
A galactic collision of two galaxies which began more than 300 million years ago, NGC 520 is actually made up of two disk galaxies which will eventually merge together to form one larger, more massive system. NGC 520 was discovered by William Herschel in 1784 and is one of the largest and brightest galaxies in the Siena Galaxy Atlas.

The universe is vast, likely containing trillions of galaxies -- an almost incomprehensible number. But when we focus in on just the nearby galaxies to our Milky Way, we already see a large number and huge diversity of galaxies around us.

A nearby galaxy catalog, the Siena Galaxy Atlas (SGA), was recently updated and now includes almost 400,000 galaxies located within our cosmic neighborhood, and this treasure trove of data is available to the public for free.

Read more