The internet had a set of fun last year when bird of Jove - eyed TV audience spotted agalaxy that looked like a question markin an range of a function from the James Webb Space Telescope . Now , Webb has stumbled across another questioning beetleweed , and the rationality for its strange anatomy reveal an important fact about how the telescope look at some of the most remote beetleweed ever observe .
The new doubtfulness soft touch - shaped galaxy is part of an image of galaxy cluster MACS - J0417.5 - 1154 , which is so massive that it distorts space - time . highly monumental objects — in this case , a cluster of many Galax urceolata — exercise so much gravitational force that they bow space , so the light travel past these object is stretch . It ’s similar using a magnifying glass . In some cases , this effect , predict gravitational lensing , can even make the same galaxy appear multiple time in unlike post within one image .
This particular fount is the result of the Earth , the coltsfoot clump , and the target extragalactic nebula line up just so , and it ’s called a inflated umbilic gravitational lens . There is actually one pair of extragalactic nebula here , but the lensing make it appear five clock time and make the dubiousness mark shape .
“ We know of only three or four occurrences of similar gravitative electron lens configurations in the evident population , which makes this ascertain exciting , as it demo the power of Webb and suggest mayhap now we will discover more of these , ” enunciate stargazer Guillaume Desprez of Saint Mary ’s University in Halifax , Nova Scotia , in astatement .
The simulacrum was taken with Webb ’s NIRCam cat’s-paw , but the investigator also used Webb ’s NIRISS instrument to pick out where star shaping was occurring , even in a beetleweed located billions of light - years forth . The pace of star constitution can be ramped up when two galaxy are in the process of merging or clash .
“ Knowing when , where , and how lead organization occurs within galaxies is essential to understanding how galaxies have acquire over the chronicle of the universe , ” tell astronomer Vicente Estrada - Carpenter of Saint Mary ’s University . “ Both galaxies in the Question Mark Pair show dynamic headliner formation in several thick regions , likely a result of gas from the two galaxy colliding . However , neither galaxy ’s shape seem too disrupted , so we are probably seeing the outset of their fundamental interaction with each other . ”
As well as being a playfulness peculiarity , the extragalactic nebula see here are useful models of what our own galaxy was like when it was younger .
“ These galaxies , seen zillion of years ago when superstar constitution was at its superlative , are alike to the mass that the whitish Way beetleweed would have been at that time . Webb is allowing us to study what the teen years of our own galaxy would have been like , ” say Marcin Sawicki of Saint Mary ’s University .
The research is published in theMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society .
