James Webb Space Telescope Sees 'Ghostly' Interstellar Light

The first deep field image of the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) allowed scientists to study the faint, ghostly light of orphan stars between galaxies in galaxy clusters.

These stars are not gravitationally bound to the galaxies, they are pulled away from their homes and pulled into intergalactic space by the massive tidal forces generated between cluster galaxies. The light from these stellar orphans is called intracluster light and is so dim that it only has about one percent of the brightness of the Earth’s visible dark sky.

Studying this ghostly light from orphan stars not only reveals how galaxy clusters form, it could give scientists clues to the properties of dark matter, the mysterious substance that makes up about 85% of a galaxy’s mass.

Around: Scientists say the James Webb Space Telescope is revealing the oldest galaxies in the universe like never before

Dark matter does not interact with light, which means that scientists know that it is not like everyday matter that it is made of protons and neutrons. Its existence can currently only be inferred from its gravitational interactions, which literally keep the stars and planets of the galaxies from flying away.

The JWST sees the universe in infrared light, the frequencies of electromagnetic radiation that allow astronomers to see galaxy clusters differently than seen in visible light.

Sharp infrared images from JWST allowed Canary Islands Institute of Astronomy (IAC) researchers Mireia Montes and Ignacio Trujillo to study the light within the galaxy cluster SMACS-J0723.3-7327 to an unprecedented level of detail.

The first “deep field” image from the James Webb Telescope that allowed the study of light is in the constellation SMACS-J0723.3-7327. (Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI)

This sharpness comes from the fact that JWST’s images of SMACS-J0723.3-7327, located about 4 billion light-years from Earth in the constellation Phulan, are twice as deep as observations previously taken by the same group. space telescope.

said senior researcher Montes V statement (Opens in a new tab). “This will allow us to study galaxy clusters much further away and in greater detail.”

Studying this faint light within the cluster requires more than the observational power of JWST, which means the team must also develop new image analysis techniques. “In this work, we needed to perform additional processing of the JWST images to be able to study the light within the cluster, as it is a faint elongated structure,” Montes explained in the release. “It was necessary to avoid bias in our measurements.”

The data obtained by scientists is striking evidence of the potential of light within a cluster to reveal the processes behind the formation of structures in galaxy clusters.

“In analyzing this scattered light, we found that the inner parts of the cluster are formed by the merger of massive galaxies, while the outer parts are caused by the accumulation of galaxies similar to our own. The Milky Way liberates Montes.

In addition, because the stars within the cluster follow the gravitational influence of the group as a whole rather than that of individual galaxies, the light from these stellar orphans provides an excellent means for studying the distribution of dark matter in these clusters.

“The JWST test will allow us to characterize the distribution of dark matter in these massive structures with unprecedented precision, and shed light on their fundamental nature,” added Trujillo, second author of the study.

The duo’s research is published Dec. 1 in Astrophysical Journal Letters (Opens in a new tab).

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James Webb Space Telescope Sees ‘Ghostly’ Interstellar Light

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