of james webb space telescope We revealed the inner workings of N79, an important star-forming region in the LMC, and compared the efficiency and chemical specificity of N79 with the star-forming region of N79. milky way.
This image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the H II region of the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The nebula, known as N79, is a region of ionized interstellar atomic hydrogen that was captured here by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Observer (MIRI).
N79 is a massive star-forming complex spanning approximately 1630 light-years in the generally unexplored southwestern region of the LMC. N79 is generally considered a younger version of 30 Doradas (also known as the Tarantula Nebula), one of Webb’s recent targets. Research shows that N79 has a star formation efficiency that exceeds Doradas 30 by twice hers over the past 500,000 years.
This particular image centers on one of three giant molecular cloud complexes called N79 South (S1 for short). The distinctive “starburst” pattern surrounding this bright object is a series of diffraction spikes. All telescopes that use mirrors to collect light, like the Webb, have this form of artifact resulting from the telescope’s design.
For Webb, the six largest starburst spikes appear due to the hexagonal symmetry of Webb’s 18 primary mirror segments. Such patterns are only noticeable around very bright and compact objects, where all the light comes from the same place. Most galaxies appear very small to our eyes, but we don’t see this pattern because they are dimmer and more spread out than a single star.
Webb’s insights into mid-infrared star formation
In the longer wavelengths of light captured by MIRI, Webb’s view of N79 shows glowing gas and dust in the region. This is because mid-infrared light can reveal what’s going on deep within the cloud (while shorter wavelength light is absorbed or scattered by dust particles within the nebula). Still embedded protostars also appear in this region.
The chemical composition of these star-forming regions is similar to that of giant star-forming regions observed when the universe was only a few billion years old and star formation was at its peak. , is of interest to astronomers. The star-forming regions of our Milky Way galaxy are not producing stars as rapidly as N79 and have a different chemical composition. Webb now offers astronomers an opportunity to compare and contrast observations of star formation in N79 with telescopes’ deep observations of distant galaxies in the early universe.
These observations of N79 are part of the Webb program to study the evolution of circumstellar disks and envelopes of forming stars over a wide range of masses and different evolutionary stages. Thanks to Webb’s sensitivity, scientists will be able to detect for the first time a disk of planet-forming dust around a star with the mass of the Sun at a distance of the LMC.
This image includes 7.7 microns of light shown in blue, 10 microns shown in cyan, 15 microns shown in yellow, and 21 microns shown in red (770W, 1000W, 1500W, and 2100W filter).