First modification: 06/09/2022 – 23:44
Washington (AFP) – The James Webb Space Telescope has captured the nebula nicknamed Tarantula in great detail, revealing previously unseen aspects that deepen scientific understanding, NASA said Tuesday.
Officially known as 30 Doradus, this region of space is characterized by its dusty filaments that resemble the legs of a hairy spider and has long been a favorite of astronomers interested in star formation.
Thanks to the high resolution of the Webb Telescope’s infrared instruments, thousands of young stars, distant background galaxies, and the detailed structure of nebulae of gas and dust became visible for the first time.
Webb works primarily in the infrared spectrum, since light from objects in the distant cosmos has been stretched toward this wavelength in the course of the universe’s expansion.
The telescope’s main camera, the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), discovered that the cavity in the nebula’s center was hollowed out by radiation carried by stellar winds emanating from a cluster of massive young stars, appearing as faint dots. blue.
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Webb’s Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec), which analyzes light patterns to determine the composition of objects, caught a young star in the act of shedding an surrounding dust cloud.
The star itself was thought to be in a more advanced stage of formation, already in the process of shedding its cloud of dust.
The astronomical interest in the Tarantula Nebula is due to its chemical composition, which is similar to the large star-forming regions observed a few billion years after the Big Bang, a period called “cosmic noon,” when the formation of stars reached their peak.
Just 161,000 light-years away, Tarantula is an easily visible example of this flourishing period of cosmic creation.
Webb will also provide scientists with the opportunity to look at galaxies far away at the current epoch of cosmic noon, and compare them to the Tarantula observations, to understand the similarities and differences.
Operational since July, Webb is the most powerful space telescope ever built. Astronomers are confident that it will herald a new age of discovery.
© 2022 AFP