The 'Extreme Outer Galaxy' taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, M Ressler (JPL)
Webb’s infrared instruments have captured a sector full of newly formed stars to help scientists learn more about the early days of our galaxy.
The James Webb Space Telescope has once again peered into the mysteries of star formation – this time at the edges of our galaxy.
The space observatory looked at a region of space more than 58,000 light years away from the galactic centre of the Milky Way – Earth is roughly 26 000 light-years from the centre. This distant region of space is called the extreme outer galaxy.
But the edges of the Milky Way are not empty – the latest image by Webb shows a bundle of activity as the new stars are formed in this sector. The activity is contained in two molecular clouds and would normally be obscured by dust and gas, but thanks to Webb’s infrared instruments, scientists can peer inside and witness the activity.
Thanks to these images, NASA and the European Space Agency say scientists can now study star formation in the outer Milky Way at the same level of detail as observations in our own solar neighbourhood.
“In the past, we knew about these star forming regions but were not able to delve into their properties,” said lead author of the study Dr Natsuko Izumi. “The Webb data builds upon what we have incrementally gathered over the years from prior observations with different telescopes and observatories. We can get very powerful and impressive images of these clouds with Webb.”
The James Webb image shows young, newly formed stars with extended jets of material spewing out along their poles. There is one particularly dense area in the image showing a firecracker of activity, with multiple new stars emitting extended jets of material.
Scientists previously suspected that a sub-cluster of stars might be present in these clouds, but Webb has confirmed its existence for the first time.
The researchers can use this data to learn more about the process of star formation and also believe this sector is reminiscent of the Milky Way during its early stages of formation. The team intends to take more observations of this outer section to find answers to a variety of current questions, such as how particular environments can influence different types of stars during their formation.
Earlier this year, the James Webb Space Telescope was used to peer into the murky depths of M82, a galaxy that is sprouting new stars 10 times faster than the Milky Way.
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