Observing these “protostars” being formed allows researchers to know if the process of star formation in the SMC is different from what we observe in our own Milky Way.
The James Webb Space Telescope is studying one of the most dynamic star-forming regions in nearby galaxies, the so-called NGC 346, near our Milky Way, in which they have detected significant amounts of dust, something astronomers weren’t expecting, its website reported Wednesday.
NCG 346 is located in the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a “dwarf galaxy” close to the Milky Way which contains lower concentrations of elements heavier than hydrogen or helium called metals.
Since dust grains in space are mostly made of “metals”, scientists expected to find only small amounts of dust and that it would be difficult to detect; but “new data” from the Webb telescope “reveals the exact opposite”.
Astronomers explored this region because “the conditions and amount of metals in the SMC resemble those observed in galaxies billions of years ago”, at a time in the history of the Universe known as the name of “cosmic noon”, when star formation was in full swing. swing.
Some 2 to 3 billion years after the Big Bang, he explains, galaxies were forming stars at breakneck speed, and “the fireworks of star formation that occurred then are still shaping the galaxies we see around us today”.
“Even though NGC 346 is now the only massive star-forming cluster in its galaxy, it provides us with an excellent opportunity to study the conditions that existed at ‘cosmic noon,'” said Margaret Meixner, astronomer and principal investigator of the team of scientists. .
Observing these “protostars” being formed allows researchers to know if the process of star formation in the SMC is different from what we observe in our own Milky Way.
When stars form, they “accumulate gas and dust that can look like ribbons In the pictures of Webb”, of the surrounding molecular cloud.
Astronomers have detected gas around protostars in NGC 346, but Webb’s near-infrared observations mark the first time they’ve detected dust in those disks as well.
“With Webb, we can investigate lighter protostars as small as a tenth of our Sun” and find out if their formation process “is affected by the lower metal content,” said Olivia Jones, from the UK Center for Technology of Astronomy.
For Guido De Marchi, of the European Space Agency (ESA), “we see the basic components not only of stars, but also potentially of planets”.
Webb is the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched into space, under an international collaboration agreement between ESA, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
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