O Telescópio Espacial James Webb revelou imagens detalhadas de 19 galáxias espirais, mostrando estrelas, gás e poeira a um nível sem precedentes.
Os investigadores estão a analisar essas imagens para entender as origens das estruturas galácticas, nem que seja avançando nas simulações teóricas, para tentar melhorar o conhecimento sobre a formação estelar e a evolução das galáxias.
Nos registos, a NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) do Webb capturou milhões de estrelas, que brilham em tons de azul. Algumas estão espalhadas pelos braços espirais, outras estão agrupadas em aglomerados.
Já os dados do MIRI (Instrumento de Infravermelho Médio) do telescópio destacam a poeira brilhante onde ela existe, atrás, em redor e entre as estrelas. Também destaca estrelas que ainda não se formaram totalmente, ou seja, estão envoltas no gás e na poeira que alimentam o seu crescimento, “como sementes vermelhas brilhantes nas pontas dos picos empoeirados”, refere a ESA.
Clique nas imagens para mais detalhe
![NGC 1566 is 60 million light-years away in the constellation Dorado. Learn more about what can be seen in this vast collection of Webb images here. [Image description: Webb’s image of NGC 1566 shows a densely populated face-on spiral galaxy anchored by a central region that has a light blue haze surrounding it. Two prominent spiny spiral orange arms extend to the edges and rotate counterclockwise.]](http://mb.web.sapo.io/8bb497fd4f582f946590be2d6d58b2c04090f8d6.jpg)
![NGC 3627 is 36 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. Learn more about what can be seen in this vast collection of Webb images here. [Image description: Webb’s image of NGC 3627 shows a face-on barred spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which has a bright blue central dot. It is surrounded by a bar structure filled with a lighter blue haze of stars, which forms a large, angled oval toward the top. Two large distinct spiral arms appear as arcs that start at the central bar. One starts at left and stretches to the top and another starts at right and extends to the bottom.]](http://mb.web.sapo.io/8597b696321502e09df2d9cde110173122a8a796.jpg)
![NGC 4535 is 50 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. Learn more about what can be seen in this vast collection of Webb images here. [Image description: Webb’s image of NGC 4535 shows a densely populated face-on barred spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which has a light orange haze. The galaxy’s core is centred and connected by an almost vertical bar structure to the galaxy’s two prominent spiral arms, which appear to rotate clockwise, forming an elongated S shape in shades of orange.]](http://mb.web.sapo.io/8746ecc20693d29030134a1759d1cb23357f4836.jpg)
![NGC 7496 is 24 million light-years away in the constellation Grus. Learn more about what can be seen in this vast collection of Webb images here. [Image description: The central core of Webb’s image of the galaxy NGC 7496 begins as a bright white dot that melts into bright oranges. Eight prominent diffraction spikes emanate from the centre. A bright orange arc that looks like a thin, backward S forms the bar and two of the face-on spiral galaxy’s arms.]](http://mb.web.sapo.io/689b4501d5d9c329abc916560c8475524b305d84.jpg)
Surpreendentemente, as imagens do Webb também mostram grandes conchas esféricas no gás e na poeira que podem ter sido criadas por estrelas que explodiram.
As regiões de gás dos braços espirais também revelam detalhes em vermelho e laranja, ajudando os astrónomos a entenderem como as galáxias distribuem o seu gás e poeira. Estas estruturas fornecerão informações importantes sobre como as galáxias constroem, mantêm e interrompem a formação de estrelas.
As evidências mostram que as galáxias crescem de dentro para fora, com a formação estelar a começar nos núcleos e a espalhar-se ao longo dos seus braços espirais, sugerindo que estrelas mais distantes do centro são mais jovens, enquanto as próximas aos núcleos são mais antigas.
A presença de picos de difração rosa e vermelha nos núcleos pode indicar a presença de buracos negros supermassivos ativos ou saturação de aglomerados de estrelas brilhantes em direção ao centro.
Os dados do Webb complementam observações anteriores do Hubble, do Very Large Telescope e do ALMA, como parte do projeto PHANGS, apoiado por mais de 150 astrónomos em todo o mundo, para entender a formação estelar e a evolução galáctica. As novas contribuições no infravermelho próximo e médio do supertelescópio fornecem mais informação sobre o “quebra-cabeças”.
Clique para ver outras imagens já registadas pelo James Webb
![This image of interacting galaxies Arp 142, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-InfraRed Camera) and MIRI (Mid-InfraRed Instrument), shows compass arrows, a scale bar, and a colour key for reference. The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped relative to direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above). The scale bar is labelled in light-years, which is the distance that light travels in one Earth-year. (It takes three years for light to travel a distance equal to the length of the scale bar.) One light-year is equal to about 9.46 trillion kilometres. The scale bar is also labelled in arcseconds, which is a measure of angular distance on the sky. One arcsecond is equal to an angular measurement of 1/3600 of one degree. There are 60 arcminutes in a degree and 60 arcseconds in an arcminute. (The full Moon has an angular diameter of about 30 arcminutes.) The actual size of an object that covers one arcsecond on the sky depends on its distance from the telescope. This image shows invisible near- and mid-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colours. The colour key shows which NIRCam and MIRI filters were used when collecting the light. The name of each filter is the visible light colour used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter. [Image description: Two interacting galaxies known as Arp 142. At left is NGC 2937, nicknamed the Egg for its appearance. At right is NGC 2936, nicknamed the Penguin for its appearance. The latter’s beak-like region points toward and above the Egg.]](https://mb.web.sapo.io/a4abd86df8fd1af368a46d5331c138ff3b2c13d7.jpg)
![This image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument shows a portion of the GOODS-North field of galaxies. At the lower right, a pullout highlights the galaxy GN-z11, which is seen at a time just 430 million years after the Big Bang. The image reveals an extended component, tracing the GN-z11 host galaxy, and a central, compact source whose colours are consistent with those of an accretion disc surrounding a black hole. [Image description: A rectangular image with thousands of galaxies of various shapes and colours on the black background of space. Some are noticeably spirals, either face-on or edge-on, while others are blobby ellipticals. Many are too small to discern any structure. One prominent foreground star at top centre features Webb’s signature eight-point diffraction spikes. At lower right, a small region is highlighted with a white box. Vertical lines extend upward like a cone to the bottom corners of a larger box at upper right, showing a zoomed-in version of the highlighted area. The pullout features a galaxy labelled GN-z11, seen as a fuzzy yellow dot. Above it is another galaxy, seen as a fuzzy red oval.]](http://mb.web.sapo.io/f6f30cda88cbe87e155871ba5170c9132f94fd15.jpg)
![This two-part graphic shows evidence of a gaseous clump of helium in the halo surrounding the galaxy GN-z11. In the top portion, at the far right, a small box identifies GN-z11 in a field of galaxies. The middle box shows a zoomed-in image of the galaxy. The box at the far left displays a map of the helium gas in the halo of GN-z11, including a clump that does not appear in the infrared colours shown in the middle panel. In the lower half of the graphic, a spectrum shows the distinct ‘fingerprint’ of helium in the halo. The full spectrum shows no evidence of other elements and so suggests that the helium clump must be fairly pristine, made almost entirely of hydrogen and helium gas left over from the Big Bang, without much contamination from heavier elements produced by stars. Theory and simulations in the vicinity of particularly massive galaxies from these epochs predict that there should be pockets of pristine gas surviving in the halo, and these may collapse and form Population III star clusters. [Image description: A graphic labelled Galaxy GN-z11, Pristine Gas Clump Near GN-z11. The graphic is divided into two sections. The top half of the graphic features a rectangular image of a field of galaxies with two pullouts, the second of them labelled Helium Two Detected. The bottom half shows a single line graph.]](http://mb.web.sapo.io/e88335c0ecb525e2977cdb7fda8db35d60433f94.jpg)
![This image of the GOODS-North field, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), shows compass arrows, a scale bar, and a colour key for reference. The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped relative to direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above). The scale bar is labelled in angular distance on the sky, where one arcsecond is one 3600th of a degree. The scale bar is 60 arcseconds long. This image shows invisible near-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colours. The colour key shows which NIRCam filters were used when collecting the light. The colour of each filter name is the visible light colour used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter. [Image description: A rectangular image shows thousands of galaxies of various shapes and colours on the black background of space. The pullout features a galaxy labelled GN-z11, seen as a fuzzy yellow dot. Above it is another galaxy, seen as a fuzzy red oval. To the left of the small box, a scale bar is labelled 60 arcseconds. It extends about one tenth of the way across the image. Below the image, a list of NIRCam filters show what colours were used to make the image. Filters shown in blue are F090W, F115W, and F150W. Filters shown in green are F200W, F277W, and F335M. Filters shown in red are F356W, F410M, and F444W.]](http://mb.web.sapo.io/e5b881b601f585337061240e616183a872385437.jpg)
![This image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument shows a portion of the GOODS-North field of galaxies. [Image description: A rectangular image with thousands of galaxies of various shapes and colours on the black background of space. Some are noticeably spirals, either face-on or edge-on, while others are blobby ellipticals. Many are too small to discern any structure. One prominent foreground star at top centre features Webb’s signature eight-point diffraction spikes.]](http://mb.web.sapo.io/2041446b9a53fd51681679e5383d06e674e14b2e.jpg)
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