NASA's Webb Provides Another Look Into Galactic Collisions

Arp 107 (NIRCam and MIRI Image)
Credits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Arp 107 (MIRI Image) 

Credits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Arp 107 (Compass Image)
Credits: Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

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Smile for the camera! An interaction between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy, collectively known as Arp 107, seems to have given the spiral a happier outlook thanks to the two bright “eyes” and the wide semicircular “smile.” The region has been observed before in infrared by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope in 2005, however NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displays it in much higher resolution. This image is a composite, combining observations from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera).

NIRCam highlights the stars within both galaxies and reveals the connection between them: a transparent, white bridge of stars and gas pulled from both galaxies during their passage. MIRI data, represented in orange-red, shows star-forming regions and dust that is composed of soot-like organic molecules known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. MIRI also provides a snapshot of the bright nucleus of the large spiral, home to a supermassive black hole.

The spiral galaxy is classified as a Seyfert galaxy, one of the two largest groups of active galaxies, along with galaxies that host quasars. Seyfert galaxies aren’t as luminous and distant as quasars, making them a more convenient way to study similar phenomena in lower energy light, like infrared.

This galaxy pair is similar to the Cartwheel Galaxy, one of the first interacting galaxies that Webb observed. Arp 107 may have turned out very similar in appearance to the Cartwheel, but since the smaller elliptical galaxy likely had an off-center collision instead of a direct hit, the spiral galaxy got away with only its spiral arms being disturbed.

The collision isn’t as bad as it sounds. Although there was star formation occurring before, collisions between galaxies can compress gas, improving the conditions needed for more stars to form. On the other hand, as Webb reveals, collisions also disperse a lot of gas, potentially depriving new stars of the material they need to form.

Webb has captured these galaxies in the process of merging, which will take hundreds of millions of years. As the two galaxies rebuild after the chaos of their collision, Arp 107 may lose its smile, but it will inevitably turn into something just as interesting for future astronomers to study.

Arp 107 is located 465 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Leo Minor.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/News

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NASA's Chandra Adds X-ray Vision to Webb Images

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR (Spitzer): NASA/JPL-Caltech; IR (Webb): NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

JPEG (329 kb) - Large JPEG (9.3 MB) - Tiff (46.2 MB)  - More Images

 Tour: NASA's Chandra Adds X-ray Vision to Webb Images - More Animations

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In the summer of 2022, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope released images from some of its earliest observations with the newly commissioned telescope. Almost instantaneously, these stunning images landed everywhere from the front pages of news outlets to larger-than-life displays in Times Square.

Webb, however, will not pursue its exploration of the universe on its own. It is designed to work in concert with NASA's many other telescopes as well as facilities both in space and on the ground. These new versions of Webb’s first images combine its infrared data with X-rays collected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, underscoring how the power of any of these telescopes is only enhanced when joined with others.

Stephan's Quintet:
The four galaxies within Stephan’s Quintet are undergoing an intricate dance choreographed by gravity. (The fifth galaxy, on the left, is an interloping galaxy at a different distance.) The Webb image (red, orange, yellow, green, blue) of this object features never-seen-before details of the results of these interactions, including sweeping tails of gas and bursts of star formation. The Chandra data (light blue) of this system has uncovered a shock wave that heats gas to tens of millions of degrees, as one of the galaxies passes through the others at speeds of around 2 million miles per hour. This new composite also includes infrared data from NASA’s now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope (red, green, blue).

Cartwheel Galaxy:
The Cartwheel galaxy gets its shape from a collision with another smaller galaxy — located outside the field of this image — about 100 million years ago. When this smaller galaxy punched through the Cartwheel, it triggered star formation that appears around an outer ring and elsewhere throughout the galaxy. X-rays seen by Chandra (blue and purple) come from superheated gas, individual exploded stars, and neutron stars and black holes pulling material from companion stars. Webb’s infrared view (red, orange, yellow, green, blue) shows the Cartwheel galaxy plus two smaller companion galaxies — not part of the collision — against a backdrop of many more distant galactic cousins.

SMACS 0723.3–7327

Webb data shows how the galaxy cluster SMACS J0723, located about 4.2 billion light-years away, contains hundreds of individual galaxies. Galaxy clusters, however, contain far more than their galaxies alone. As some of the largest structures in the universe, they are filled with vast reservoirs of superheated gas that is seen only in X-ray light. In this image, the Chandra data (blue) reveals gas with temperatures of tens of millions of degrees, possessing a total mass of about 100 trillion times that of the Sun, several times higher than the mass of all the galaxies in the cluster. Invisible dark matter makes up an even larger fraction of the total mass in the cluster.

NGC 3324, The Cosmic Cliffs of the Carina Nebula
Chandra’s data of the “Cosmic Cliffs” (pink) reveals over a dozen individual X-ray sources. These are mostly stars located in the outer region of a star cluster in the Carina Nebula with ages between 1 and 2 million years old, which is very young in stellar terms. Young stars are much brighter in X-rays than old stars, making X-ray studies an ideal way to distinguish stars in the Carina Nebula from the many stars of different ages from our Milky Way galaxy along our line of sight to the nebula. The diffuse X-ray emission in the top half of the image likely comes from hot gas from the three hottest, most massive stars in the star cluster. They are all outside the field of view of the Webb image. The Webb image uses the following colors: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, and blue.

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

Quick Look: NASA's Chandra Adds X-ray Vision to Webb Images

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Fast Facts for Stephan's Quintet:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/SAO; IR (Spitzer): NASA/JPL-Caltech; IR (Webb): NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
Scale: Image is about 7.4 arcmin (620,000 light-years) across
Category: Groups and Clusters of Galaxies
Coordinates (J2000): RA 22h 35m 57.5s | +33° 57' 36"
Constellation: Pegasus
Observation Dates: Jul 9, 2000 & Aug 17, 2007
Observation Time: 31 hours (1 day 7 hours)
Obs. IDs: 789, 7924
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: cyan; IR (Spitzer): red, green, blue; Optical/IR (Webb): red, orange, yellow, green, blue
Distance Estimate: About 290 million light-years

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Fast Facts for Cartwheel Galaxy:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
Scale: Image is about 2.34 arcmin (340,000 light-years) across
Category: Groups and Clusters of Galaxies, Normal Galaxies & Starburst Galaxies
Coordinates (J2000): RA 00h 37m 41.1s | Dec -33° 42' 59"
Constellation: Sculptor
Observation Dates: 3 observations: May, 2001; Jan 2008, Sept 2008
Observation Time: 49 hours 12 minutes (2 days 1 hour 12 minutes)
Obs. IDs: 2019, 9531, 9807
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: blue and purple; IR: red, orange, yellow, green, blue
Distance Estimate: About 500 million light-years

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Facts for SMACS 0723.3–7327:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Durham Univ./G. Mahler; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
Scale: Image is about 2.4 arcmin (2.5 million light-years) across
Category: Groups and Clusters of Galaxies
Coordinates (J2000): RA 07h 23m 19.5s | Dec -73° 27' 15.6"
Constellation: Volans
Observation Dates: April 14, 2014
Observation Time: 5 hours 30 minutes
Obs. IDs: 15296
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: blue; IR: red, orange, green, blue
Distance Estimate: About 4.2 billion light-years (z=0.39)

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Facts for NGC 3324, The Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula:

Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Univ. Observ. Munich/T. Preibisch et al.; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
Scale: Image is about 7.3 arcmin (16 light-years) across
Category: Normal Stars & Star Clusters
Coordinates (J2000): RA 10h 36m 48.0s | Dec -58° 37' 35.0"
Constellation: Carina
Observation Dates: Oct 08, 2012
Observation Time: 19 hours 8 minutes
Obs. IDs: 13613
Instrument: ACIS
Color Code: X-ray: purple; IR: red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue
Distance Estimate: About 7,670 light-years.

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Webb’s Instruments Reveal New Details About Star Formation

Cartwheel Galaxy (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Image)
Credits: ImageE: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team
Release Images

The Cartwheel Galaxy, a rare ring galaxy once shrouded in dust and mystery, has been unveiled by the imaging capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. 

The galaxy, which formed as a result of a collision between a large spiral galaxy and another smaller galaxy, not only retained a lot of its spiral character, but has also experienced massive changes throughout its structure. 

Webb’s high-precision instruments resolved individual stars and star-forming regions within the Cartwheel, and revealed the behavior of the black hole within its galactic center. These new details provide a renewed understanding of a galaxy in the midst of a slow transformation.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has peered into the chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy, revealing new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole. Webb’s powerful infrared gaze produced this detailed image of the Cartwheel and two smaller companion galaxies against a backdrop of many other galaxies. This image provides a new view of how the Cartwheel Galaxy has changed over billions of years.

The Cartwheel Galaxy, located about 500 million light-years away in the Sculptor constellation, is a rare sight. Its appearance, much like that of the wheel of a wagon, is the result of an intense event – a high-speed collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy not visible in this image. Collisions of galactic proportions cause a cascade of different, smaller events between the galaxies involved; the Cartwheel is no exception. 

The collision most notably affected the galaxy’s shape and structure. The Cartwheel Galaxy sports two rings — a bright inner ring and a surrounding, colorful ring. These two rings expand outwards from the center of the collision, like ripples in a pond after a stone is tossed into it. Because of these distinctive features, astronomers call this a “ring galaxy,” a structure less common than spiral galaxies like our Milky Way. 

The bright core contains a tremendous amount of hot dust with the brightest areas being the home to gigantic young star clusters. On the other hand, the outer ring, which has expanded for about 440 million years, is dominated by star formation and supernovas. As this ring expands, it plows into surrounding gas and triggers star formation.

Other telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, have previously examined the Cartwheel. But the dramatic galaxy has been shrouded in mystery – perhaps literally, given the amount of dust that obscures the view. Webb, with its ability to detect infrared light, now uncovers new insights into the nature of the Cartwheel.

The Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), Webb’s primary imager, looks in the near-infrared range from 0.6 to 5 microns, seeing crucial wavelengths of light that can reveal even more stars than observed in visible light. This is because young stars, many of which are forming in the outer ring, are less obscured by the presence of dust when observed in infrared light. In this image, NIRCam data are colored blue, orange, and yellow. The galaxy displays many individual blue dots, which are individual stars or pockets of star formation. NIRCam also reveals the difference between the smooth distribution or shape of the older star populations and dense dust in the core compared to the clumpy shapes associated with the younger star populations outside of it.

Learning finer details about the dust that inhabits the galaxy, however, requires Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). MIRI data are colored red in this composite image. It reveals regions within the Cartwheel Galaxy rich in hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds, as well as silicate dust, like much of the dust on Earth. These regions form a series of spiraling spokes that essentially form the galaxy’s skeleton. These spokes are evident in previous Hubble observations released in 2018, but they become much more prominent in this Webb image.

Webb’s observations underscore that the Cartwheel is in a very transitory stage. The galaxy, which was presumably a normal spiral galaxy like the Milky Way before its collision, will continue to transform. While Webb gives us a snapshot of the current state of the Cartwheel, it also provides insight into what happened to this galaxy in the past and how it will evolve in the future.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world's premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and the Canadian Space Agency.

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/News

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