What Happens When Hubble And James Webb Space Telescope Join Forces?

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What Happens When Hubble And James Webb Space Telescope Join Forces?

Ever since the James Webb Space Telescope embraced the skies to peep into the past of the universe, its capabilities have been constantly pitted against the Hubble Space Telescope. While the latter has already earned legendary status, thanks to all the detailed images of the cosmos in its service of over three decades, the JWST is yet to get there. However, there are times when these two powerful telescopes join forces to work on the same project.

 

Both telescopes have focused their lenses on the galaxy pair VV 191, showing how light from the galaxy on the left filters through the spiral arms of the galaxy on the right side. The new image has enabled scientists to study the dust in the spiral galaxy.

 

Merging Hubble And Webb Data

“This is a rather unique opportunity to measure how much dust has been produced in this spiral galaxy, like our own, by previous generations of stars,” said Rogier Windhorst, lead researcher. “Mind you that this is the kind of dust that the next generation of stars and planets, and in our case people, are also formed from.”

The Hubble Space Telescope captures an image in the visible light and ultraviolet portions of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, the JWST observes an object in infrared light which is beyond the capabilities of human vision.

While merging the data from both space observatories, the team used Hubble data for showcasing the bluish tones, while the Webb data came in handy to pick up on the dust features.

“We got more than we bargained for by combining data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope,” Windhorst added.

Gravitational Lensing Showed Another Galaxy

The ultimate cosmic crossover also allowed the team to find something surprising. They noticed a red smudge to the northwest position of the galaxy on the left. Well, it wasn’t just a smudge, but another distant galaxy that was visible due to a phenomenon called gravitational lensing.

The research has already been submitted to The Astrophysical Journal but is yet to be peer-reviewed and published.

Hubble And JWST Locking Horns

Recently, the Hubble Space Telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope set their crosshairs on the same spiral galaxy IC 5332 which is located more than 29 million light-years away from Earth.

James Webb used its amazing MIRI instrument to capture the skeletal-like structure of the IC 5332 galaxy’s spiral arms. The image shows the galaxy in a much higher detail compared to Hubble Space Telescope’s image. Both images will help astronomers understand the evolution of the spiral galaxy and star formation.

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