The Spitzer Space Telescope’s Infrared Array Camera took a photo of Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte (WLM), which is a dwarf galaxy located nearby the Milky Way. But when NASA’s next-generation James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) entered the cosmic scene, the whole picture of the dwarf galaxy changed completely, literally speaking!
WLM is located “only” 3 million light-years away from Earth. That places the dwarf galaxy in our own galactic neighborhood. WLM might even challenge what astronomers know about star formation, in general, as the dwarf galaxy is believed to have not interacted with other star systems.
How it started ➡️ How it’s going
These images demonstrate Webb’s remarkable ability to resolve faint stars in nearby dwarf galaxy Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte (WLM). On the right is Webb’s brand new image, and on the left is Spitzer’s view: https://t.co/ha4Wv7cBJK pic.twitter.com/9V6ppr4hoe
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) November 9, 2022
Just in case you want to take an even closer look at the “antisocial” structure:
What's WLM like?
🏠 Galactic neighbor: 3 million light-years away
🙅 Antisocial: Hasn’t interacted with nearby galaxies
👴 Old school: Similar chemical makeup to early universe galaxiesThis makes WLM ideal for studying how stars in the early universe may have formed & evolved. pic.twitter.com/iWMYnVaofk
— NASA Webb Telescope (@NASAWebb) November 9, 2022
Kristen McQuinn, who serves as an assistant professor at Rutgers University’s department of physics and astronomy in Piscataway, New Jersey, explained in a comment from the official website of NASA:
We can see a myriad of individual stars of different colors, sizes, temperatures, ages, and stages of evolution; interesting clouds of nebular gas within the galaxy; foreground stars with Webb’s diffraction spikes; and background galaxies with neat features like tidal tails.
The James Webb Space Telescope never seems to take a break after its launch back in late 2021. For instance, just a few days ago, our publication shared the news of the telescope discovering the oldest star clusters in the Universe.
Kartheik G. Iyer, who’s a co-lead author of that previous study and a post-doctoral researcher, stated as Phys.org quotes:
Looking at the first images from JWST and discovering old globular clusters around distant galaxies was an incredible moment—one that wasn’t possible with previous Hubble Space Telescope imaging.
James Webb has been launched into space with the purpose of looking deeper into the unknown than any other telescope has ever been able to before.
