A new photo taken by James Webb was shared on January 11. Still as grandiose, it shows a very dynamic region for the formation of stars, as at the time of “cosmic noon”.
At the height of its venerable 13.7 billion years, the universe has gone through several stages in its existence. One of them, which appeared very soon after the Big Bang, earned the nickname “cosmic noon”. This was a very dynamic time for new star formation. As if the space was taken up by a kind of unbridled flowering.
An intense period of stellar flowering
It is precisely a glimpse of this “cosmic noon” that the James Webb Space Telescope gives. On January 12, the US space agency shared a photo of cluster NGC 346, which is nestled in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Here, the distances are colossal: this structure is distant from the Earth by about 200,000 light-years.
” Some 2 to 3 billion years after the big bang, galaxies were forming stars at a breakneck pace. The fireworks of star formation that occurred at that time still shape the galaxies we see around us today “, Develops NASA. This is what the picture shows: the ” cosmic noon, when star formation was at its peak. »
A structure like NGC 346 is now rare in our time. In the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy, it is the only one that is known, notes Margaret Meixner, astronomer in charge of the research project. But at the time of this firework of stellar births, any galaxy would have had thousands of NGC 346s.
Cosmic noon, the period when the emergence of stars was at its zenith
The fact remains that even if NGC 346 is ” now the one and only furiously star-forming massive cluster in its galaxy, it offers us an excellent opportunity to probe the conditions that were in place at cosmic noon », Welcomes the scientist And it is also an opportunity to compare the differences with the formation of stars which is taking place now.
This is one of the advantages of having this window on the past. It gives the astronomical community the opportunity to observe the peculiarities as protostars and stars are formed, between what can be observed in our own galaxy — the Milky Way — and in this fiery nursery. And the power of James Webb is a decisive asset here.
Because we didn’t discover NGC 346 yesterday. Its discovery dates back to 1826! But over the years and scientific advances, knowledge of this nebula has not ceased to be deepened. Several instruments have pointed to this target, whether it is the La Silla Observatory or the Hubble Space Telescope. But James Webb goes even further, thanks to his infrared capabilities.