The Whirlpool Galaxys buff, spiral arms grab JWSTs attention

Date:
Tue, 29 Aug 2023 20:00:00 +0000

Description:
In this new image of M51 taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, the dark
red regions trace the filamentary warm dust permeating the medium of the galaxy. The orange and yellow portions show areas of ionized gas created by recently formed star clusters. ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team M51 is a grand-design spiral galaxy about 25 million light-years away from Earth and boasts very well-developed arms. The post The Whirlpool Galaxys buff, spiral arms grab JWSTs attention
appeared first on Popular Science .

FULL STORY ======================================================================
In this new image of M51 taken by the James Webb Space Telescope, the dark
red regions trace the filamentary warm dust permeating the medium of the galaxy. The orange and yellow portions show areas of ionized gas created by recently formed star clusters. ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has captured a stellar new image of the Whirlpool Galaxy (aka M51 or NGC 5194) , a grand-design spiral galaxy about
27 million light-years away from Earth. According to the European Space
Agency (ESA) , grand-design spiral galaxies like this one have prominent, well-developed spiral arms , unlike other spiral galaxies that have more ragged or disrupted spiral arms.

[Related: Herschel Space Telescopes First Images Give Promising Glimpse of Whats to Come. ]

M51 lies in the constellation Canes Venatici (or The Hunting Dogs ) and is trapped in a bit of a tumultuous relationship with the dwarf galaxy NGC 5195
. The interaction between these two galactic neighbors has been one of the more well studied galaxy pairs in the sky. M51s gravitational influence on
its smaller companion is believed to be partially responsible for the grand nature of its prominent and distinct spiral arms.

This new galactic portrait uses data from JWSTs Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) . This new observation is one of a series of observations collectively titled Feedback in Emerging extrAgalactic Star clusTers (FEAST). The FEAST observations were designed for astronomers and
the public to learn more about stellar feedback and star formation environments outside of the Milky Way galaxy.

Stellar feedback describes the o utpouring of energy from stars into the environments which form them . It is a crucial process in determining the rates at which stars form, and is important to building accurate models of star formation.

Stellar feedback has a dramatic effect on the medium of the galaxy and
creates a complex network of bright knots as well as cavernous black bubbles, the ESA wrote in a statement .

In the new image , the dark red regions trace the filamentary warm dust permeating the medium of the galaxy. These rosy regions show the reprocessed light from complex molecules forming on dust grains. The orange and yellow portions show areas of ionized gas created by recently formed star clusters. Unlike the menagerie of weird and wonderful spiral galaxies with ragged or disrupted spiral arms, grand-design spiral galaxies boast prominent, well-developed spiral arms like M51. CREDIT: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team.

Before JWST became operative in 2022, other observatories including those
made at the Atacama Large Millimetre Array in the Chilean desert and the Hubble Telescope gave astronomers a glimpse of star formation. These observations occurred at either the onset, when the dense gas and dust clouds where stars will form, or after the stars have been destroyed with their energy their natal gas and dust clouds. JWST is opening up a new
observational window to the earlier stages of star formation and stellar light.

Scientists are seeing star clusters emerging from their natal cloud in galaxies beyond our local group for the first time. They will also be able to measure how long it takes for these stars to pollute with newly formed metals and to clean out the gas (these time scales are different from galaxy to galaxy), wrote the ESA.

[Related: Our universe mastered the art of making galaxies while it was
still young .]

More observations and study of these processes is expected to lead to a
better understanding of how the whole star formation cycle and metal enrichment process are regulated within galaxies. It also could help present
a more clear time scale for when planets and brown dwarfs form because once gas and dust is removed from newly formed stars, there isnt any material left to form planets.

The post The Whirlpool Galaxys buff, spiral arms grab JWSTs attention
appeared first on Popular Science . Articles may contain affiliate links
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Link to news story:
https://www.popsci.com/science/jwst-whirlpool-galaxy/


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