The image demonstrates Webbs exceptional capability to resolve faint stars outside the Milky Way. WLM has actually been forming stars just recently– throughout cosmic time, really– and those stars have actually been manufacturing brand-new components, some of the product gets expelled from the galaxy when the huge stars take off. The images show Webbs remarkable capability to fix faint stars outside the Milky Way. The main science focus is to rebuild the star formation history of this galaxy. Low-mass stars can live for billions of years, which implies that some of the stars that we see in WLM today formed in the early universe.
A portion of the dwarf galaxy Wolf– Lundmark– Melotte (WLM) recorded by the James Webb Space Telescopes Near-Infrared Camera. The image shows Webbs exceptional capability to resolve faint stars outside the Milky Way.
NASA talked with Kristen McQuinn of Rutgers University, one of the lead researchers on Webb Early Release Science (ERS) program 1334, concentrated on solved stellar populations. These are big groups of stars– including stars within the dwarf galaxy Wolf– Lundmark– Melotte (WLM)– that are close enough for Webb to distinguish in between private stars, however far enough for Webb to capture a great deal of stars simultaneously.
Tell us a bit about this galaxy, WLM. Whats intriguing about it?
WLM is a dwarf galaxy in our galactic neighborhood. Its fairly close to the Milky Way (just about 3 million light-years from Earth), however its also relatively separated. We believe WLM hasnt connected with other systems, that makes it really great for checking our theories of galaxy formation and advancement. A number of the other neighboring galaxies are intertwined and knotted with the Milky Way, that makes them more difficult to study.
Another intriguing and essential aspect of WLM is that its gas resembles the gas that comprised galaxies in the early universe. Its fairly unenriched, chemically speaking. (That is, its bad in aspects heavier than hydrogen and helium.).
This is due to the fact that the galaxy has lost a lot of these components through something we call stellar winds. WLM has actually been forming stars recently– throughout cosmic time, actually– and those stars have actually been synthesizing brand-new components, some of the product gets expelled from the galaxy when the massive stars take off. Supernovae can be energetic and powerful enough to press product out of small, low-mass galaxies like WLM.
This makes WLM very intriguing in that you can use it to study how stars form and develop in little galaxies like those in the ancient universe.
A portion of the dwarf galaxy Wolf– Lundmark– Melotte (WLM) captured by the Spitzer Space Telescopes Infrared Array Camera (left) and the James Webb Space Telescopes Near-Infrared Camera (right). The images demonstrate Webbs impressive ability to fix faint stars outside the Milky Way. The Spitzer image reveals 3.6-micron light in cyan and 4.5-micron in orange. (IRAC1 and IRAC2). The Webb image consists of 0.9-micron light shown in blue, 1.5-micron in cyan, 2.5-micron in yellow, and 4.3-micron in red (filters F090W, F250M, f150w, and f430m). Credit: Science: NASA, ESA, CSA, IPAC, Kristen McQuinn (RU), Image Processing: Zolt G. Levay (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI).
You arranged to reveal this image at a planetarium. How did you feel when you saw the image projected on the dome?
It was just inspiring. It actually was unbelievable. I will never look at these images the very same once again. Seeing this on the dome, it was like searching for at our own night sky– at the Milky Way– from a dark site. I might picture that we were basing on a world in the WLM galaxy and looking up at its night sky.
We can see a myriad of specific stars of various colors, sizes, temperatures, ages, and phases of advancement; intriguing clouds of nebular gas within the galaxy; foreground stars with Webbs diffraction spikes; and background galaxies with cool features like tidal tails. Its actually a gorgeous image.
And, of course, the view is far much deeper and much better than our eyes could perhaps see. Even if you were keeping an eye out from a world in the middle of this galaxy, and even if you might see infrared light, you would require bionic eyes to be able to see what the Webb Space Telescope sees.
NASAs James Webb Space Telescope is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, the most effective infrared science observatory ever to be sent out into area. From its orbit almost a million miles from Earth, Webb will study some of the most distant objects in the universe. Credit: NASA.
What are you searching for out by studying WLM?
The primary science focus is to reconstruct the star formation history of this galaxy. Low-mass stars can live for billions of years, which suggests that some of the stars that we see in WLM today formed in the early universe. By figuring out the residential or commercial properties of these low-mass stars (like their ages), we can acquire insight into what was occurring in the extremely distant past. Its very complementary to what we find out about the early development of galaxies by looking at high-redshift systems, where we see the galaxies as they existed when they initially formed.
The Early Release Science programs were developed to highlight Webbs capabilities and help astronomers prepare for future observations. How are you supporting other astronomers with this work?
In a couple of ways. Were inspecting the calibration of the NIRCam instrument itself. Were examining our outstanding development models. And were developing software to measure star brightnesses.
Now were looking at the near-infrared light with Webb, and were using WLM as a sort of requirement for contrast (like you would use in a laboratory) to assist us make sure we understand the Webb observations. We desire to make sure were measuring the stars brightnesses actually, truly properly and precisely.
Our team is also charged with developing a public software tool to measure the brightness of all the fixed stars in the NIRCam images. This is a non-proprietary tool that everybody will have the ability to utilize. We are evaluating the software and developing, and enhancing the parameters utilized for measurements. This is a bedrock tool for astronomers worldwide. You need a tool like this if you desire to do anything with dealt with stars that are crowded together on the sky.
About the Author.
Kristen McQuinn is an assistant teacher in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Rutgers University, and co-investigator on Directors Discretionary Early Release Science program 1334.
Keep in mind: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review procedure.