Posted on 10/24/2022 1:13:35 PM PDT by Red Badger
On the left is a Hubble image of many faraway galaxies against the dark background of space. In the middle is a blown-up portion of the Hubble image, highlighting in various colors what the JWST's view of the galaxy merger looks like. On the right, each color from the image is separated so as to show the different velocities present.
What you're looking at is evidence of a massive galaxy merger happening 11.5 billion light-years away.
ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, D. Wylezalek, A. Vayner & the Q3D Team, N. Zakamska
Now that we have a powerful lens pointed toward the deepest regions of the universe at all times, our definition of "surprise" has slightly altered when it comes to astronomy pics.
It's no longer surprising, really, when NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals yet another brilliant, ancient piece of the cosmos. At this point, we know to expect nothing less from the trailblazing machine.
Instead, whenever the telescope sends back a jaw-dropping space image, it now elicits more of a "JWST strikes again!" feeling. And still, our jaws legitimately drop every single time.
This sort of dissonant version of "surprise" has happened yet again -- to a pretty extreme degree. Last week, scientists presented the JWST's brilliant view of a galaxy cluster merging around a massive black hole that houses a rare quasar -- aka an incomprehensibly bright jet of light spewing from the void's chaotic center.
There's a lot going on here, I know. But the team behind the find thinks it could escalate even further.
"We think something dramatic is about to happen in these systems," Andrey Vayner, a Johns Hopkins astronomer and co-author of a study about the scene soon to be published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, said in a statement. For now, you can check out a detailed outline of the discovery in a paper published on arXiv.
An artist's concept of a galaxy with a brilliant quasar at its center.
NASA, ESA and J. Olmsted (STScI)
Especially fascinating about this portrait is that the quasar at hand is considered an "extremely red" quasar, which means it's super far away from us and therefore physically rooted in a primitive region of space that falls near the beginning of time.
In essence, because it takes time for light to travel through space, every stream of cosmic light that reaches our eyes and our machines is seen as it was long ago. Even moonlight takes about 1.3 seconds to reach Earth, so when we peer up at the moon, we're seeing it 1.3 seconds in the past.
More specifically with this quasar, scientists believe it took about 11.5 billion years for the object's light to reach Earth, meaning we're seeing it as it was 11.5 billion years ago. This also makes it, according to the team, one of the most powerful of its kind observed from such a gargantuan distance (11.5 billion light-years away, that is).
"The galaxy is at this perfect moment in its lifetime, about to transform and look entirely different in a few billion years," Vayner said of the realm in which the quasar is anchored.
Analyzing a galactic rarity
In the colorful image provided by Vayner and fellow researchers, we're looking at several things.
Each color in this image represents material moving at a different velocity.
ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, D. Wylezalek, A. Vayner & the Q3D Team, N. Zakamska
On the left is a Hubble Space Telescope view of the region studied by the team, and in the middle is a blown-up version of the spot that the JWST zeroed-in on. Glance to the far right of this image, where four individually color-coded boxes are seen and you'll be analyzing different aspects of the JWST data broken down by velocity.
Red stuff is moving away from us and blue toward us, for instance.
This classification shows us how each of the galaxies involved in the spectacular merger are behaving -- including the one that holds the extreme black hole and accompanying red quasar, which is, in fact, the only one the team expected to uncover with NASA's multibillion dollar instrument.
"What you see here is only a small subset of what's in the data set," Nadia L. Zakamska, a Johns Hopkins astrophysicist and co-author of the study, said in a statement. "There's just too much going on here so we first highlighted what really is the biggest surprise. Every blob here is a baby galaxy merging into this mommy galaxy and the colors are different velocities and the whole thing is moving in an extremely complicated way."
Now, Zakamska says, the team will start to untangle the motions and enhance our view to an even greater extent. Already, though, we're looking at information far more incredible than the team expected to begin with. Hubble and the Gemini-North telescope previously showed the possibility of a transitioning galaxy but definitely didn't hint at the swarm we can see with the JWST's awesome infrared equipment.
Toward the center, slightly southwest, is a glowing circle depicting Neptune. Faint rings, also glowing, are seen encircling the orb. Northwest of this globe is a six-spiked, bright bluish fixture representing one of Neptune's moons. Tons of spots and swi In another spectacular image taken by Webb's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), a smattering of hundreds of background galaxies, varying in size and shape, appear alongside the Neptune system.
ESA
"With previous images, we thought we saw hints that the galaxy was possibly interacting with other galaxies on the path to merger because their shapes get distorted in the process," Zakamska said. "But after we got the Webb data, I was like, 'I have no idea what we're even looking at here, what is all this stuff!' We spent several weeks just staring and staring at these images."
Soon enough, it became clear that the JWST was showing us at least three separate galaxies moving incredibly fast, the team said. They even believe this could mark one of the densest known areas of galaxy formation in the early universe.
An artistic impression of the quasar P172+18, which is associated with a black hole 300 times more massive than the sun.
ESO/M. Kornmesser
Everything about this complex image is mesmerizing. We have the black hole, that Zakamska calls a "monster," a highly rare jet of light being spit from that black hole and a gaggle of galaxies on a collision course -- all seen as they were billions of years in the past.
So, dare I say it? The JWST strikes again, offering us an exceedingly precious cosmic vignette. Cue, jaw drop.
I always wondered, if the universe is infinite or it branches out into infinite universes, then anything you think exists must. For example there must be an entire planet of Nancy Pelosis, or as we know it here on earth: Hell. Or there must be a Captain Kirk out there with a Spock and Bones flying around in an Enterprise. Or democrats with common sense. OK, maybe that’s going too far, that’s impossible.
Thanks for posting.
What you're looking at is evidence of a massive galaxy merger that happened 11.5 billion years ago.
I wish there was some way to see what it looked like over the 11.5 billion years since then.
Just wait.
You will.......................
Jaw drop indeed. With all that is going on “out there” I am amazed that there is life on Earth at all.
I worked at the Kecks for ten years.
I was always a history buff and that is what
Astronomy is; History, much of it very ancient.
I had always had this nagging question in my mind,
other than navigation, what has astronomy done to
improve our lives?
It is like the old adage that if you had an infinite number of monkeys banging away at an infinite number of typewriters one of them would reproduce all of the works of Shakespeare.
I hope this does not happen to our galaxy. We will be crying for spilled milk.
That’s one hungry hole.
Is one a Trump-supporting MAGA galaxy assaulting a new transgender-galaxy? Do we need to transform our government to prevent this in the future? How much did Climate Change cause this to happen?
The inventor of the wheel or the forge was probably asked the same thing.
sorry... maybe it’s due to a life in construction but seeing the blurry blobs and reading their explanation, I, in no way, can see anything they are hypnotizing!! To see any movement at all at that distance would be 100s of years.
I dont buy any of it!! just take the pictures in focus the best you can and then STFU with the rest of it. just how the heel can they tell GALAXIES depicted in different colors are moving at different speeds!!!???
I should been a space artist.
Something being viewed now which is 11.5 BILLION Light Years away—— happened a very very long time ago.
That is to say it happened 11.5 BILLION years ago from thie present viewing. So, uh we’re still here so it must not have been anything which would have STOPPED the development of life on Earth. So why so much excitement-— it’s a really old re-run.
If only the aliens had paid more taxes there would not be a black hole swallowing up their galaxy...
But they would have written “Shakespeare” in chimpanzee “language” even so, and taken a long time to do that if they could even envision the plot lines of English stage drama.
They could just as well worked out nuclear fusion- maybe they have and wejust can’t understand them!
It’s a thought, for now- 11.5 Billion years too late.
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