Posted on by Evan Gough

Webb Sees a Supercluster of Galaxies Coming Together

Using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers have found new galaxies in the Spiderweb protocluster. Because Webb can see infrared light very well, scientists used it to observe regions of the Spiderweb that were previously hidden to us by cosmic dust, and to find out to what degree this dust obscures them. This image shows the Spiderweb protocluster as seen by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-InfraRed Camera). Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, H. Dannerbauer

As a species, we’ve come to the awareness that we’re a minuscule part of a vast Universe defined by galaxy superclusters and the large-scale structure of the Universe. Driven by a healthy intellectual curiosity, we’re examining our surroundings and facing the question posed by Nature: how did everything get this way?

We only have incremental answers to that huge, almost infinitely-faceted question. And the incremental answers are unearthed by our better instruments, including space telescopes, which get better and more capable as time passes.

Enter the James Webb Space Telescope.

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Posted on by Evan Gough

This New Map of 1.3 Million Quasars Is A Powerful Tool

This figure from the research shows the sky distribution of the new Quaia quasar catalogue in Galactic coordinates and is displayed using a Mollweide projection. The grey region across the center is the Milky Way, a blind spot in the Quaia catalogue. Image Credit: K. Storey-Fisher et al. 2024

Quasars are the brightest objects in the Universe. The most powerful ones are thousands of times more luminous than entire galaxies. They’re the visible part of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) at the center of a galaxy. The intense light comes from gas drawn toward the black hole, emitting light across several wavelengths as it heats up.

But quasars are more than just bright ancient objects. They have something important to show us about the dark matter.

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