融合する超高光度赤外線銀河であるアープ 220 は、ジェームズ ウェッブ宇宙望遠鏡によって捉えられ、その 1 兆太陽の光度、大規模な星の形成、進行中の銀河ダンスの鮮明な証拠を示しています。 クレジット: NASA、ESA、CSA、STScI、画像処理: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
赤外線でとらえた星の誕生のまばゆい表示
2 つの渦巻銀河の見事な衝突が、1 兆個以上の太陽の光で赤外線で輝いています。 集合的に Arp 220 と呼ばれる銀河の衝突は、途方もないバーストの星の誕生に火をつけました。 結合している銀河のコアのそれぞれは、ウェッブが赤外線で捉えたまぶしい光を吹き飛ばす、回転する星形成リングによって取り囲まれています。 この輝かしい光は、際立ったスパイク状のスター バーストの特徴を作り出します。
ジェームズ ウェッブ宇宙望遠鏡は、2 つの渦巻銀河の合体によって形成された超高輝度赤外線銀河 (ULIRG) であるアープ 220 のこの驚くべき画像を捉えました。 2 億 5000 万光年離れたへび座に位置し、天の川の 100 億個と比較して、1 兆個以上の太陽の光度を持っています。 この衝突は巨大な星の形成を引き起こし、天の川全体に相当するガスを含むコンパクトでほこりの多い領域に約 200 の巨大な星団があります。 望遠鏡は、親銀河のコアを明らかにしました。それぞれのコアには、印象的な赤外線光の原因となる回転する星形成リングがあります。 この画像はまた、進行中の銀河の合体の証拠として、かすかな潮汐尾と有機物を示しています。 クレジット: NASA、ESA、CSA、STScI、画像処理: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
ウェッブ宇宙望遠鏡が捉えた壮観な銀河の合体アープ 220
銀河の海の中で輝くビーコンのように輝く Arp 220 は、このビューで夜空を照らします。[{” attribute=””>NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Actually, two spiral galaxies in the process of merging, Arp 220 glows brightest in infrared light, making it an ideal target for Webb. It is an ultra-luminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) with a luminosity of more than a trillion suns. In comparison, our Milky Way galaxy has a much more modest luminosity of about ten billion suns.
Located 250 million light-years away in the constellation of Serpens, the Serpent, Arp 220 is the 220th object in Halton Arp’s Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. It is the nearest ULIRG and the brightest of the three galactic mergers closest to Earth.
The collision of the two spiral galaxies began about 700 million years ago. It sparked an enormous burst of star formation. About 200 huge star clusters reside in a packed, dusty region about 5,000 light-years across (about 5 percent of the Milky Way’s diameter). The amount of gas in this tiny region is equal to all of the gas in the entire Milky Way galaxy.
Image of Arp 220 captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), with compass arrows, scale bar, and color 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 labeled in light-years, which is the distance that light travels in one Earth-year. (It takes 18,000 years for light to travel a distance equal to the length of the bar.) One light-year is equal to about 5.88 trillion miles or 9.46 trillion kilometers. The field of view shown in this image is approximately 120,000 light-years across.
This image shows invisible infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colors. The color key shows which filters were used when collecting the light. The color of each filter name is the visible-light color used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Previous radio telescope observations revealed about 100 supernova remnants in an area of less than 500 light-years. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope uncovered the cores of the parent galaxies 1,200 light-years apart. Each of the cores has a rotating, star-forming ring blasting out the dazzling infrared light so apparent in this Webb view. This glaring light creates diffraction spikes — the starburst feature that dominates this image.
On the outskirts of this merger, Webb reveals faint tidal tails, or material drawn off the galaxies by gravity, represented in blue — evidence of the galactic dance that is occurring. Organic material represented in reddish-orange appears in streams and filaments across Arp 220.
Webb viewed Arp 220 with its Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s leading space science observatory is the James Webb Space Telescope, and was designed to unravel the mysteries of our solar system and explore distant worlds around other stars. Moreover, it aims to investigate the enigmatic structures and origins of our universe, and our position within it. This international program is spearheaded by NASA in collaboration with its partners, namely, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency.