He James Webb Space Telescope He continues to amaze the scientific world with his spectacular images of the universe. Last week, this technological marvel captured a stunning image of Herbig Haro 46/47a pair of newly formed stars only a few thousand years old… with a hidden question.
While this image on its own is impressive, in recent days an intriguing cosmic “photobomber” has emerged and stolen the spotlight.
As it explains TechSpot, located in the Milky Way galaxy and at a distance of approximately 1,470 light-years from Earth, Herbig-Haro is a close neighbor in cosmic terms. However, in the background of this image there are thousands of other objects.
Although some of them could be stars, many are distant galaxies that appear as simple points of light in the image… or as very familiar symbols on Earth.
The “spatial question mark”
But what has scientists stumped is an unexpected discovery in the high-resolution image taken with the near-infrared camera (NIRCam). Just below and slightly to the right of the Herbig-Haro nebula, there is a small orange spot. A more detailed observation reveals that this blob forms an almost perfectly aligned question mark (?).
Although scientists have yet to confirm for sure the nature of this object, they have two strong theories in mind. Representatives of the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is in charge of Webb’s science operations, speculate that this cosmic question mark could be a distant galaxy or even a pair of galaxies interacting with each other.
For his part, assistant professor of physics at Illinois State University, Matt Caplan, suggests that the object could be the result of the merger of two galaxies. He explained that the upper curvature could be a sign that the larger galaxy is being “tidally disrupted.”
The other possibility is that it is one or two independent galaxies nearby but without interaction.. If this is true, the enigmatic question mark could remain as it is for millions of years or even longer. The only sure thing is that they are not stars, since they lack the distinctive refractive spikes typical of bright objects.