Galaxies news, articles and features | Page 7

$This side-by-side comparison shows observations of the Southern Ring Nebula in near-infrared light, at left, and mid-infrared light, at right, from NASA???s Webb Telescope. This scene was created by a white dwarf star ??? the remains of a star like our Sun after it shed its outer layers and stopped burning fuel though nuclear fusion. Those outer layers now form the ejected shells all along this view. In the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) image, the white dwarf appears to the lower left of the bright, central star, partially hidden by a diffraction spike. The same star appears ??? but brighter, larger, and redder ??? in the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) image. This white dwarf star is cloaked in thick layers of dust, which make it appear larger. The brighter star in both images hasn???t yet shed its layers. It closely orbits the dimmer white dwarf, helping to distribute what it???s ejected. Over thousands of years and before it became a white dwarf, the star periodically ejected mass ??? the visible shells of material. As if on repeat, it contracted, heated up ??? and then, unable to push out more material, pulsated. Stellar material was sent in all directions ??? like a rotating sprinkler ??? and provided the ingredients for this asymmetrical landscape. Today, the white dwarf is heating up the gas in the inner regions ??? which appear blue at left and red at right. Both stars are lighting up the outer regions, shown in orange and blue, respectively. The images look very different because NIRCam and MIRI collect different wavelengths of light. NIRCam observes near-infrared light, which is closer to the visible wavelengths our eyes detect. MIRI goes farther into the infrared, picking up mid-infrared wavelengths. The second star more clearly appears in the MIRI image, because this instrument can see the gleaming dust around it, bringing it more clearly into view. The stars ??? and their layers of light ??? steal more attention in the NIRCam image, while dust pl$

Space

James Webb Space Telescope releases dazzling first science images

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galaxies

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JWST has caught two galaxies smashing together and sparking starbursts

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JWST has released a striking new image of the strange Cartwheel galaxy

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JWST has spotted a weird, distant galaxy with almost no heavy elements

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JWST keeps breaking its own record for the most distant galaxy ever

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JWST finds galaxies may adopt Milky Way-like shape faster than thought

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Astronomers are mapping millions of hidden galaxies

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Astronomers are already unscrambling the warped galaxies seen by JWST

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James Webb Space Telescope releases dazzling first science images

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The universe is surprisingly lopsided and we don't know why

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What's next for Event Horizon Telescope after its black hole pictures?

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Astronomers have found what may be the most distant galaxy ever seen

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Odd radio circles in space may come from black holes at their centres

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Weird black hole spewed star-forming jets 500 light years long

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Largest 3D map of the universe contains 8 million galaxies