The largest near-infrared image of galaxies ever taken by the Hubble Space Telescope has provided a platform for astronomers looking for potential targets for the James Webb Space Telescope.
The image is the result of a project called 3D-DASH and was taken by Hubble Space TelescopeWide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) with additional archival data from Hubble’s advanced research camera. It covers 1.35 square degrees in the sky, equivalent to about six full moons, and contains thousands of galaxies. The aim is to identify galaxies that deserve further study by James Webb Space Telescope and other telescopes in the future.
“I am curious about the giant galaxieswhich are the most massive in the universe formed by the merging of other galaxies, “said Lamia Moula, an astronomer at the Dunlap Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto and head of new research. statement. “How have their structures grown and what has led to changes in their shape?” It was difficult to study these extremely rare events using existing images, which motivated the design of this large study. “
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It would normally take Hubble 2,000 hours of observations to create such a large image, but the Mowla team used a new technique called Drift and Shift (DASH) that took multiple photos and combined them, collecting individual images eight times larger. . than the typical field of view of WFC3 (0.04 x 0.04 degrees). Also, instead of making one image every time you go around The EarthHubble can make eight images using the DASH technique. With a total of 1256 individual WFC3 photos, it took only 250 hours of observation time to complete the entire mosaic.
Most of the galaxies in the image are seen as spots of infrared light. The most distant ones can be seen as they existed about 10 billion years ago, and the light of the bright star-forming regions in them was red shifted on expansion of the universe in near infrared wavelengths. You can see these galaxies in more detail in the online interactive version of the image from 3D-Dash Image Explorer.
Unlike Hubble, Webb will be able to study these galaxies in more detail, thanks to increased light-gathering power from the newer telescope’s 6.5-meter mirror (21.3 feet). With the first Webb images of scientific quality should be out on July 12the publication of 3D-DASH data is really timely.
A selection of the full 3D-DASH image, the largest mosaic ever assembled by the Hubble Space Telescope in infrared. (Image credit: Lamiya Mowla)
For larger photos from research, astronomers will have to wait for those from the European Space Agency Euclid mission and NASA Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescopewhich will have larger fields of view (0.79 x 1.16 degrees and 0.8 x 0.4 degrees, respectively) than Hubble and Web and is expected to be launched in 2023 and 2027, respectively.
The study was accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, and a preprint version is available through arXiv database.
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