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By NASA
Phil Kaaret (ST12) is lead author on the paper which describes Chandra X-ray Observatory observations of the galaxy NGC 2366. Escape of Lyman continuum (LyC) emission from galaxies found in the early universe was essential for the reionization of the universe when the intergalactic medium (IGM) changed from being neutral gas to the ionized IGM that we observe today. Compact emission-line galaxies (LCGs) are the most abundant class of confirmed Lyman continuum (LyC) emitters and provide (relatively) nearby analogs of the galaxies found in the early universe. An optical integral field study of NGC 2366 revealed an outflow originating at a star cluster known as “knot B” that is thought to clear a channel via mechanical feedback that enables LyC escape. We observed NGC 2366 with the Chandra and detected X-ray emission from a point source coincident with the apex of the outflow at knot B. The pointlike nature and variability of the X-ray emission suggests accretion onto a compact object in an X-ray binary. The accretion could produce sufficient kinetic energy to power the outflow. Thus, outflows from X-ray binaries may be important in enabling LyC emission from galaxies.
Read more at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2405.13192.
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By NASA
4 Min Read Peering Into the Tendrils of NGC 604 with NASA’s Webb
Star-forming region NGC 604. Credits:
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI The formation of stars and the chaotic environments they inhabit is one of the most well-studied, but also mystery-shrouded, areas of cosmic investigation. The intricacies of these processes are now being unveiled like never before by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.
Two new images from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) showcase star-forming region NGC 604, located in the Triangulum galaxy (M33), 2.73 million light-years away from Earth. In these images, cavernous bubbles and stretched-out filaments of gas etch a more detailed and complete tapestry of star birth than seen in the past.
Sheltered among NGC 604’s dusty envelopes of gas are more than 200 of the hottest, most massive kinds of stars, all in the early stages of their lives. These types of stars are B-types and O-types, the latter of which can be more than 100 times the mass of our own Sun. It’s quite rare to find this concentration of them in the nearby universe. In fact, there’s no similar region within our own Milky Way galaxy.
This concentration of massive stars, combined with its relatively close distance, means NGC 604 gives astronomers an opportunity to study these objects at a fascinating time early in their life.
Image: NIRCam View NGC 604
This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) of star-forming region NGC 604 shows how stellar winds from bright, hot, young stars carve out cavities in surrounding gas and dust. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI In Webb’s near-infrared NIRCam image, the most noticeable features are tendrils and clumps of emission that appear bright red, extending out from areas that look like clearings, or large bubbles in the nebula. Stellar winds from the brightest and hottest young stars have carved out these cavities, while ultraviolet radiation ionizes the surrounding gas. This ionized hydrogen appears as a white and blue ghostly glow.
The bright orange-colored streaks in the Webb near-infrared image signify the presence of carbon-based molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs. This material plays an important role in the interstellar medium and the formation of stars and planets, but its origin is a mystery. As you travel farther from the immediate clearings of dust, the deeper red signifies molecular hydrogen. This cooler gas is a prime environment for star formation.
Webb’s exquisite resolution also provides insights into features that previously appeared unrelated to the main cloud. For example, in Webb’s image, there are two bright, young stars carving out holes in dust above the central nebula, connected through diffuse red gas. In visible-light imaging from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, these appeared as separate splotches.
Image: MIRI View NGC 604
This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) of star-forming region NGC 604 shows how large clouds of cooler gas and dust glow in mid-infrared wavelengths. This region is home to more than 200 of the hottest, most massive kinds of stars, all in the early stages of their lives. NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Webb’s view in mid-infrared wavelengths also illustrates a new perspective into the diverse and dynamic activity of this region. In the MIRI view of NGC 604, there are noticeably fewer stars. This is because hot stars emit much less light at these wavelengths, while the larger clouds of cooler gas and dust glow. Some of the stars seen in this image, belonging to the surrounding galaxy, are red supergiants – stars that are cool but very large, hundreds of times the diameter of our Sun. Additionally, some of the background galaxies that appeared in the NIRCam image also fade. In the MIRI image, the blue tendrils of material signify the presence of PAHs.
NGC 604 is estimated to be around 3.5 million years old. The cloud of glowing gases extends to some 1,300 light-years across.
Video: Explore the Images
Explore Webb’s images of NGC 604 with Dr Jane Rigby (Webb Senior Project Scientist). Credit: NASA The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.
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Download full resolution images for this article from the Space Telescope Science Institute.
Media Contacts
Laura Betz – laura.e.betz@nasa.gov, Rob Gutro – rob.gutro@nasa.gov
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
Christine Pulliam – cpulliam@stsci.edu
Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Related Information
Hubble’s view of NGC 604
Hubble’s view of NGC 604 host galaxy Triangulum (M33)
Star Lifecycle
More Webb News – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/latestnews/
More Webb Images – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/multimedia/images/
Webb Mission Page – https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/
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Last Updated Mar 09, 2024 Editor Stephen Sabia Contact Laura Betz laura.e.betz@nasa.gov Related Terms
Astrophysics Galaxies, Stars, & Black Holes James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Missions Nebulae Science & Research Star-forming Nebulae The Universe View the full article
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By NASA
3 min read
Discovery Alert: Glowing Cloud Points to a Cosmic Collision
This illustration depicts the aftermath of a collision between two giant exoplanets. What remains is a hot, molten planetary core and a swirling, glowing cloud of dust and debris. Mark A. Garlick The Discovery:
A glowing cosmic cloud has revealed a cataclysmic collision.
Key Facts:
Even within our own solar system, scientists have seen evidence of giant, planetary collisions from long ago. Remaining clues like Uranus’ tilt and the existence of Earth’s moon point to times in our distant history when the planets in our stellar neighborhood slammed together, forever changing their shape and place in orbit. Scientists looking outside our solar system to far off exoplanets can spot similar evidence that, across the universe, planets sometimes crash. In this new study, the evidence of such an impact comes from a cloud of dust and gas with a strange, fluctuating luminosity.
Details:
Scientists were observing a young (300-million-year-old) Sun-like star when they noticed something odd: the star suddenly and significantly dipped in brightness. A team of researchers looked a little closer and they found that, just before this dip, the star displayed a sudden spike in infrared luminosity.
In studying the star, the team found that this luminosity lasted for 1,000 days. But 2.5 years into this bright event, the star was unexpectedly eclipsed by something, causing the sudden dip in brightness. This eclipse endured for 500 days.
The team investigated further and found that the culprit behind both the spike in luminosity and the eclipse was a giant, glowing cloud of gas and dust. And the most likely reason for the sudden, eclipse-causing cloud? A cosmic collision between two exoplanets, one of which likely contained ice, the researchers think.
In a new study detailing these events, scientists suggest that two giant exoplanets anywhere from several to tens of Earth masses crashed into one another, creating both the infrared spike and the cloud. A crash like this would completely liquify the two planets, leaving behind a single molten core surrounded by a cloud of gas, hot rock, and dust.
After the crash, this cloud, still holding the hot, glowing remnant of the collision, continued to orbit the star, eventually moving in front of and eclipsing the star.
Fun Facts:
This study was conducted using archival data from NASA’s now-retired WISE mission – the spacecraft continues to operate under the name NEOWISE. This star was first detected in 2021 by the ground-based robotic survey ASAS-SN (All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae).
While this data revealed remnants of this planetary collision, the glow of this crash should still be visible to telescopes like NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. In fact, the research team behind this study is already putting together proposals to observe the system with Webb.
Discoverers:
The study, “A planetary collision afterglow and transit of the resultant debris cloud,” was published Oct. 11, 2023, in Nature by lead author Matthew Kenworthy alongside 21 co-authors.
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Last Updated Feb 16, 2024 Related Terms
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By NASA
It’s oh-so-easy to be mesmerized by this spiral galaxy. Follow its clearly defined arms, which are brimming with stars, to its center, where there may be old star clusters and – sometimes – active supermassive black holes. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope delivered highly detailed scenes of this and other nearby spiral galaxies in a combination of near- and mid-infrared light.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), and the PHANGS team NGC 4254, a spiral galaxy, is resplendent in orange and blue in this Jan. 29, 2024, image from the James Webb Space Telescope. This is one of 19 nearby spiral galaxies recently imaged by the telescope as part of the long-standing Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program supported by more than 150 astronomers worldwide.
Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera captured millions of stars in these images, which sparkle in blue tones, while the telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument data highlights glowing dust, showing us where it exists around and between stars.
Explore the intricacies of spiral galaxies in this deep dive.
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), and the PHANGS team
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