James Webb captures stunning image of star formation in nearby galaxy

By Georgina Torbet Published January 14, 2023

A stunning new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a stellar nursery called NGC 346, which is not only beautiful but is also leading astronomers to rethink their theories about how stars and planets could have formed in the early universe.

The star cluster NGC 346 is a busy region full of star formation and is located in the nearby Small Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The composition of the Small Magellanic Cloud is rather different from that of the Milky Way, as it has fewer heavier elements. As dust is typically composed of these heavier elements, astronomers thought that there would be less dust in the Small Magellanic Cloud — but that’s not what Webb found.

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. — 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. 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)

Instead, Webb found abundant dust as well as hydrogen, which means this galaxy has the building blocks not only for stars but also for planets. This is interesting to astronomers who had wanted to study the Small Magellanic Cloud because its composition makes it similar to much older galaxies that existed in a period of the universe called the cosmic noon, around 2 to 3 billion years after the Big Bang.

Recommended Videos

“A galaxy during cosmic noon wouldn’t have one NGC 346 like the Small Magellanic Cloud does; it would have thousands,” leader of the research team, Margaret Meixner of the Universities Space Research Association, explained in a statement. “But even if NGC 346 is now the one and only massive cluster furiously forming stars in its galaxy, it offers us a great opportunity to probe conditions that were in place at cosmic noon.”

The fact that there could be materials required to create rocky planets in such a galaxy raises questions about the timeline of planet formation in the universe. “We’re seeing the building blocks, not only of stars but also potentially of planets,” said co-author Guido De Marchi of the European Space Agency. “And since the Small Magellanic Cloud has a similar environment to galaxies during cosmic noon, it’s possible that rocky planets could have formed earlier in the universe than we might have thought.”

Georgina Torbet

Space Writer

Georgina has been the space writer at Digital Trends space writer for six years, covering human space exploration, planetary…

Topics

Tech News

Space

Hubble is turning 35: Here are its best images from the last year

This new image showcases NGC 346, a dazzling young star cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud.

This month sees a very special birthday: the 35th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope. The venerable old space telescope was launched on April 24, 1990, so now is the perfect time to celebrate this beloved instrument and the contributions it continues to make to science and our understanding of space.

Even though newer telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope are more powerful than Hubble, it still fulfills an important role as an optical space telescope -- meaning that it looks primarily in the same wavelengths that the human eye can see. Webb looks in the infrared portion of the spectrum, so by working together the two telescopes can get a fuller view of an object than either could get on their own.

Space

James Webb dives into the heart of the Milky Way to study star formation

An image of the Milky Way captured by the MeerKAT radio telescope array puts the James Webb Space Telescope’s image of the Sagittarius C region in context. The MeerKAT image spans 1,000 light-years, while the Webb image covers 44 light-years.

Deep in the heart of the Milky Way lies a bustling region near to the galaxy's supermassive black hole, where stars are born. But something strange is happening there: the rate of star formation is lower than it seems like it should be. With thick clouds of dust and gas, the Sagittarius C region should be bursting with new baby stars, but instead there are relatively few new stars formed there. And now, research using the James Webb Space Telescope is revealing why.

Webb first observed the region called Sagittarius C in 2023. Now researchers are now using those observations to study star formation in the wider area around the center of the Milky Way, known as the Central Molecular Zone.

Space

James Webb captures a rare astronomical ring in the sky

This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a rare cosmic phenomenon called an Einstein ring. What at first appears to be a single, strangely shaped galaxy is actually two galaxies that are separated by a large distance. The closer foreground galaxy sits at the center of the image, while the more distant background galaxy appears to be wrapped around the closer galaxy, forming a ring.

A striking new image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a rare object called an Einstein ring. This shows what appears to be a ring-shaped object in the sky, but is actually created by two separate galaxies and the epic forces of gravity.

There's a useful astronomical phenomenon called gravitational lensing, in which a large object like a galaxy or a cluster of galaxies has so much mass that it actually bends spacetime. If a massive object sits in front of a more distant object, as seen from Earth, the massive object can act like a magnifying glass, letting us see the very distant object in more detail than would normally be possible. This is a relatively common finding in astronomical images, and is one way that scientists are able to study extremely distant galaxies.