The composite, meanwhile, shows both the enormous amount of stars in the region as well as the highlights of the stars that have just been "born."Ī delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The second image, taken from the NIRCam, put the focus on a huge swath of stars in the foreground. One trail lies just below the galaxy’s bar, and two more in the bottom-left corner - can you spot them? Links NGC 5068 (MIRI+NIRCam image) NGC 5068 (NIRCam image) Slider Tool (MIRI and NIRCam images) Video: Pan of NGC 5068 Video: Webb's views of NGC 5068 (MIRI and NIRCam images) Video: Zoom into NGC 5068 They are a little more noticeable in images such as this one from MIRI, because many stars are not as bright in mid-infrared wavelengths as they are in near-infrared or visible light, so asteroids are easier to see next to the stars. As Webb captures several images of the astronomical object, the asteroid moves, so it shows up in a slightly different place in each frame. Asteroids appear in astronomical images such as these because they are much closer to the telescope than the distant target. Three asteroid trails intrude into this image, visible as tiny blue-green-red dots. These observations span the electromagnetic spectrum and give astronomers an unprecedented opportunity to piece together the minutiae of star formation. Webb collected images of 19 nearby star-forming galaxies which astronomers could then combine with catalogues from Hubble of 10 000 star clusters, spectroscopic mapping of 20 000 star-forming emission nebulae from the Very Large Telescope (VLT), and observations of 12 000 dark, dense molecular clouds identified by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The second reason is that Webb’s observations build on other studies using telescopes including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and some of the world’s most capable ground-based observatories. By observing the formation of stars in nearby galaxies, astronomers hope to kick-start major scientific advances with some of the first available data from Webb. The first is because star formation underpins so many fields in astronomy, from the physics of the tenuous plasma that lies between stars to the evolution of entire galaxies. These observations are particularly valuable to astronomers for two reasons. Previous gems from this collection can be seen here and here. This portrait of NGC 5068 is part of a campaign to create an astronomical treasure trove, a repository of observations of star formation in nearby galaxies. These bright tendrils of gas belong to the barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068, located around 17 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. In this image, from Webb’s MIRI instrument, the dusty structure of the spiral galaxy and glowing bubbles of gas containing newly-formed star clusters are particularly prominent. A delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.
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