The most recent addition to NASA’s deep-space observatory fleet will soon begin focusing its attention on an area not too far away that is teeming with newborn stars.
The James Webb Space Telescope is nearly finished with its commissioning process and is scheduled to reveal its first operational photographs on July 12th. Following that will be a mission of early research, which will include an exploration of the Trapezium Cluster, a star nursery located in the Orion Nebula around 1,350 light-years beyond Earth.
According to an announcement released by authorities with the Webb collaboration, the cluster is densely populated with dust and gas and has around one thousand newborn stars crammed into a region that is just 4 light-years wide.
Even if the sun at the heart of our solar system has reached the middle of its lifetime, the stars that make up Trapezium are still young children and are only approximately three to four days old.
Scientists will use the Webb telescope to investigate this grouping in order to get a better understanding of the very early phases of the development of stars and the planetary systems that surround them.
Younger objects, such as brown dwarfs as well as free-floating planets that are not in orbits around one star, will be the focus of their observation efforts. These sorts of mysterious objects might provide more insight into the development of planets, whether as a component of the genesis of stars or on their own.
Infrared photons, which are basically heat released by the objects being seen, are detected by Webb, which allows the telescope to peek beyond dust or even find things that are not especially hot. Webb is well tailored for such research since it catches infrared light. In addition, since it is located in deep space, the observatory is shielded from the interference caused by the environment of Earth, which prevents it from making accurate infrared measurements.
