There are lots of questions we still have about space, but this time it seems space may have a question for us.
A photo released from the James Webb Telescope of a star system called Herbig-Haro 46/47 has left the astronomy world abuzz after a red question mark can be clearly seen.
Herbig-Haro 46/47 was an important object to study because it was relatively young - only a few thousand years old, according to researchers.
By studying the forming of stars, it also gives insight into how stars gather mass over time, potentially allowing researchers to model how our own sun, a low-mass star, formed.
Australian National University astrophysicist and cosmologist Dr Brad Tucker told RNZ’s Nights programme that when the photo was zoomed in on, there really was a question mark.
A zoomed in version of Herbig-Haro 46/47, captured by Nasa's James Webb telescope. Photo / Nasa, ESA, CSA / Image Processing / Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Anton M. Koekemoer (STScI)
Most people have concluded that it was the result of merging galaxies, Tucker said.
“Galaxies merge and come together, in fact, our Milky Way has merged or swallowed almost, over two dozen smaller galaxies, that’s actually how galaxies form,” he said.
“If you get two decently-sized galaxies they can collide and merge together and essentially what happens is because there’s so much mass in these things and then you have these super massive black holes in the centre of each of these galaxies, gravity starts to twist and pull, kind of like a pretzel, the galaxies into interesting shapes as they... collide.”
Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope captures a tightly-bound pair of actively-forming stars, known as Herbig-Haro 46/47, in high-resolution near-infrared light. Photo / Nasa, ESA, CSA
The galaxies move away and come back because of gravity like a yo-yo and get stretched again and again, Tucker said.
“The curly bit [of the question mark] is something that is already, or in the process of, being turned and stretched while the bottom galaxy, more of the circle, probably hasn’t undergone that yet.”
Tucker said because this was an accidental capture, researchers did not know how far away the galaxies were.
“We can estimate due to its colour, so redder objects usually imply that they’re older and further away, bluer, younger and nearby.”
Once it was determined how far away the question mark galaxies were, researchers could figure out if the curly bit and the circle were at the same distance, which would then give that clue that “hey, they are coming together”, Tucker said.
He said astronomists were “always excited by [the] James Webb [telescope]”.
“Every week there’s new images, there’s new data that comes along.
