1. Home
  2. Space
  3. News

How James Webb is peering into galaxies to see stars being born

By

Recently astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to look at the structures of dust and gas which create stars in nearby galaxies. Now, some of the researchers have shared more about the findings and what they mean for our understanding of how galaxies form and evolve.

The project, called Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby Galaxies, or PHANGS, used James Webb to observe several galaxies which are similar to our own Milky Way to see how stars are forming within them.

Researchers are getting their first glimpses inside distant spiral galaxies to see how stars formed and how they change over time, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope’s ability to pierce the veil of dust and gas clouds. NASA/Space Telescope Science Institute

“We’re studying 19 of our closest analogues to our own galaxy,” explained one of the researchers, Erik Rosolowsky of the University of Alberta, in a statement. “In our own galaxy, we can’t make a lot of these discoveries because we’re stuck inside it.”

Recommended Videos

By using Webb’s infrared instruments, the researchers can look through clouds of dust and gas which could be opaque if viewed in the visible light range. As objects get warmer, they give off more infrared light, so Webb’s instruments can see where pockets of warmer dust and gas sit, and how this relates to areas where stars are forming.

“At 21 micrometers [the infrared wavelength used for the images collected], if you look at a galaxy you will see all of those dust grains heated with light from the stars,” said Hamid Hassani, another of the researchers. “The infrared light is really key to tracing the cold and distant universe.”

The team has so far examined 15 galaxies, out of a total of 19 that they will examine for their project. For the galaxies imaged so far, the researchers took information about the distribution and warmth of stars and worked out the ages of those stars. That came with some surprises, as many of the images they were observing showed bright stars that were younger than they were expecting.

“The age of these [stellar] populations is very young. They’re really just starting to produce new stars and they are really active in the formation of stars,” said  Hassani.

It is the process of star formation which makes a galaxy grow and thrive. Star formation is a delicate balance of having enough material for new stars to form, and the stellar winds created by young stars blow this material away.

“If you have a star forming, that galaxy is still active,” Hassani said. “You have a lot of dust and gas and all of these emissions from the galaxy that trigger the next generation of the next massive star forming and just keep the galaxy alive.”

The research is published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Georgina Torbet
Space Writer
Georgina is the Digital Trends space writer, covering human space exploration, planetary science, and cosmology. She…
This famous supernova remnant is hiding a secret

When massive stars reach the end of their lives and explode in a supernova, they can leave behind huge structures in space called supernova remnants. These are often favorite targets of astronomers because of their beautiful and distinctive shapes. They include the famous SN 1987A remnant that was imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope last year. Now, astronomers using Webb have peered closer at this remnant and found something special inside.

The SN 1987A supernova was first observed in 1987 (hence its name) and was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye, making it extremely recent by astronomical standards. Stars live for millions or even billions of years, so observing one coming to the end of its life in real time is a real scientific treat. When this star died, it created a kind of supernova called a core collapse, or Type II, in which the heart of the star runs out of fuel, causing it to collapse suddenly and violently. This collapse it so severe that the material rebounds and is thrown out in an explosion traveling up to a quarter of the speed of light.

Read more
James Webb photographs two potential exoplanets orbiting white dwarfs

Even though scientists have now discovered more than 5,000 exoplanets, or planets outside our solar system, it's a rare thing that any telescope can take an image of one of these planets. That's because they are so small and dim compared to the stars that they orbit around that it's easier to detect their presence based on their effects on the star rather than them being detected directly.

However, thanks to its exceptional sensitivity, the James Webb Space Telescope was recently able to image two potential exoplanets orbiting around small, cold cores of dead stars called white dwarfs directly.

Read more
Hubble spies baby stars being born amid chaos of interacting galaxies

When two galaxies collide, the results can be destructive, with one of the galaxies ending up ripped apart, but it can also be constructive too. In the swirling masses of gas and dust pulled around by the gravitational forces of interacting galaxies, there can be bursts of star formation, creating new generations of stars. The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured one such hotbed of star formation in galaxy AM 1054-325, which has been distorted into an unusual shape due to the gravitational tugging of a nearby galaxy.

Galaxy AM 1054-325 has been distorted into an S-shape from a normal pancake-like spiral shape by the gravitational pull of a neighboring galaxy, as seen in this Hubble Space Telescope image. A consequence of this is that newborn clusters of stars form along a stretched-out tidal tail for thousands of light-years, resembling a string of pearls. NASA, ESA, STScI, Jayanne English (University of Manitoba)

Read more