The James Webb has just photographed one of the great mysteries of the universe’s galaxies: how they intertwine

How many galaxies fit in an image? In the instruments of the James Webb space telescope (JWST), at least, many: hundreds. And even thousands.

From close to the distant. The image taken by the JWST (with the help of the veteran hubble) and published by the European Space Agency (ESA) It shows us objects in a wide range of distances: from stars located within our own galaxy (easy to distinguish thanks to The characteristics six points of diffraction of this telescope) to distant galaxies in space and in time.

The “star” of the image. However, according to Explain the agency itselfthe main protagonist of this capture is none other than a cluster of galaxies that we can see below the center of the image, a distant group of galaxies that shines in a mixture tone of white and gold. This group emerged about 6.5 billion years after the Big Bang, when the universe as and as we know it was somewhat less than the age it is now.

The importance of this group lies in the fact that more than half of the galaxies we know can be found in similar groups, so studying it can help us understand more about how these groups that make up the greatest structures linked through the force of gravity are formed, says ESA.

Cosmos-Web. The outstanding group is the largest galactic cluster in the region called Cosmos-Web Field. COSMOS (Cosmic Evolution Survey) It is a survey that uses telescopes such as webb, hubble or the XMM-Newton Space Observatory of ESA to explore the spaces and space phenomena that occurred in that celestial region.

He Cosmos-Web program It seeks to take advantage of the high abilities of the JWST and instruments such as the Nircam filters on board to explore and map an area of ​​0.54 square degrees of the celestial vault, a little more than twice and a half times the area that occupies the full moon in our sky. This power of the instruments of the orbital telescope should allow us to understand how galactic clusters formed, taking us at a time when the universe was only 1.9 billion years old, 14% of their current age.

This is intended to meet three objectives: identify galaxies at the time of reion (when the first stars were “caught”; probe the formation of the most massive galaxies; and understand the relationship between the mass of the stars in a galaxy and The galactic halo that “wraps.”

“Galaxies feast ”. In its publication, ESA has given some additional details about the image we see. They explain, this combines nircam images (Near-Infrared Camera) with Hubble observations to present ourselves “a visual feast of galaxies.” In capture They can be seen galaxies of different types and even pairs of galaxies in the process of merging.

The European Agency He also explains The interpretation of the colors of the galaxies: the galaxies that tend to the bluish tones are those in which young stars predominate, while the most old are older; either because of the color of the stars inside, either because they are further in space and therefore in time. The latter is the effect of the phenomenon called Redshift or red shift.

Galactic evolution. Images like this have to tell us about the evolution of the universe and, above all, of galaxies like ours. The gravitational interaction between galaxies (more or less) close affects what happens within the same galaxies, such is the mass that these groups accumulate.

And not only that: collisions and mergers between galaxies in the same group also condition what happens in these. An example can find it when the nearby step of two galaxies of different size allows a huge clouds of matter “start”, or it can Cause a “burst” that quickly consumes the gas of this.

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Image | Es es/Webb, Nasa & Csa, G. Gozaliasl, A. Koekemoer, M. Franco, and The Cosmos-Web Team