2023-08-30 06:00:09
The James Webb Space Telescope, a collaborative project between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, has captured a fascinating image. At the heart of the latter, we can see a form strangely resembling a question mark. This unusual visual phenomenon was discovered in the background of an image of Herbig-Haro 46/47, representing a pair (We say that a set E is a pair when it is formed of two distinct elements…) d star formation located 1,470 light-years from Earth (Earth is the third planet in the Solar System in order of distance…).
A question mark in space? Picture: NASA, ESA, CSA.
Officials at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which manages Webb’s science operations, have speculated that this cosmic question mark might be a galaxy (Galaxies is a quarterly French science fiction journal. With… ) distant or even a pair of interacting galaxies (An interaction is an exchange of information, affects or energy between two agents within…). In these scenarios, gravitational forces might have distorted these galactic structures, giving rise to this unusual shape.
Matt Caplan, assistant professor of physics at Illinois State University, agrees. According to him, it is likely that this phenomenon is the result of two galaxies in the process of merging. The distinct shape of the upper object (Generally speaking, the word object (from the Latin objectum, 1361) designates an entity defined in…) would be a sign that the “largest galaxy (A galaxy is, in cosmology, a collection of stars, gas, dust and…) is being disturbed by gravitational forces”.
The image shows Herbig-Haro 46/47 and an apparent question mark in deep space (shown bottom center). Picture: NASA, ESA, CSA.
It is not uncommon to find familiar shapes when scanning the vastness of space. For example, we already know the Boomerang Nebula (BOOMERanG (acronym for Balloon Observations of Millimetric Extragalatic Radiation and Geophysics)…) in the shape of a ghost or even the threatening face of Arp-Madore 2026-424.
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