Webb Reveals Mysterious Feature
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Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach in collaboration with NASA’s Universe of Learning partners: Caltech/IPAC, Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, and NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Video imagery:
- Spitzer image of HH 49/50: NASA
- Webb image of HH 49/50: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
- Webb data visualization of HH 49/50: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
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Photos of planets, galaxies and nebulas scroll down the screen. Text: NEWS FROM THE UNIVERSE.
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MARCH 28. 2025, WEBB REVEALS MYSTERIOUS FEATURE. In a photo, a multicolored cloud of gas against a star field. The cloud is oblong, with a wide end that extends past the bottom of the photo.
Text: This 2006 image from NASA's now-retired Spitzer Space Telescope shows a bright point surrounded by haze at the peak of a protostellar outflow.
The photo gradually transforms into the Webb image. Here, the gas is orange red. At the end is a bright star surrounded by a purple color. Text: The James Webb Space Telescope's high-resolution instruments reveal the mysterious feature is not part of the outflow at all, but a distant spiral galaxy.
A visualization helps with understanding the relationship between the outflow of gas and the distant galaxy.
The cloud of red gas moves up and the spiral galaxy moves down, behind the cloud of gas.
Text: The still-forming star from which the high-speed jets of gas are flowing is located offscreen beyond the gas column's wider end.
Now the galaxy is visible through the cloud. Text: The column itself shows where the stellar outflow has collided with the dense gas and dust between stars. As it cools from this impact, it emits infrared light detectable by Spitzer and Webb.
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Over thousands of years, the outflow will expand and eventually block the distant galaxy from view.
Another view of the orange red gas column. It extends diagonally from left to right on the screen. The galaxy is visible at the end. The column of gas travels and slightly obscures the galaxy. Text: This news was brought to you in part by the SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE IN BALTIMORE, MARYLAND.