NASA’s Deep Space Telescope Images Question Mark

James Webb illuminates information about the origins of our universe, but the appearance of this mysterious object in the background leaves more questions than answers

A cosmic object appears as a glowing question mark in one of the latest images captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

The original near-infrared image, released on July 26, showed a pair of young stars called Herbig-Haro 46/47. Found 1,470 light-years away in the Milky Way’s constellation Vela, stars are still actively forming and orbiting each other.

Both have been observed and studied by space and ground-based telescopes since the 1950s, but the highly sensitive Webb telescope provided the highest resolution and most detailed image ever. It has the ability to observe the universe at longer wavelengths than other space telescopes.

The Webb telescope illuminates information about the origins of our universe, but the appearance of this mysterious object in the background of the image leaves more questions than answers. The cosmic question mark has not been observed or studied closely, so scientists don’t know the exact origin and composition of the object.

But they do have some ideas based on their shape and location.

“The first thing you can rule out is that it’s a star in the Milky Way,” said Matt Kaplan, assistant professor of physics at Illinois State University in the US. “Stars always have these very big peaks, and that’s because stars are punctual. It’s called diffraction, and it basically comes from the edges of the mirrors and the struts that kind of support the camera in the middle.”

Kaplan added that the Webb telescope usually allows you to see six or eight star “points” if you look closely. “That tells you right away that he’s not a star,” he said of the question mark phenomenon.

It could be a merger of two galaxies, possibly billions of light-years apart, far from Herbig-Haro 46/47, said Christopher Brett, a scientist in the Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute. Manages the science operations of the Webb telescope.

There are “many, many galaxies outside our own Milky Way,” Brett said. “It seems to be the thing that happens a lot — as galaxies grow and evolve through cosmic time — and they occasionally collide with their closest neighbors. And when that happens, they can warp all over. Kind of different shapes — including a question mark, apparently.”

cosmic questions

Experts acknowledge that this is the first time this particular object has been seen, but galaxy mergers in a question mark-like shape have happened before – including a version formed by Antennae galaxies in the constellation Corvus. Brett also noted that most galaxies have had multiple interactions like this throughout their history, but they were short-lived.

“There’s no way to fix anything (in) space,” Kaplan said. “The sun moves as it orbits the galaxy, and the galaxy, which is made up of stars, moves in the direction that gravity pulls.”

Brett remembers that this integration is also the ultimate fate of our galaxy, which will merge with the Andromeda Galaxy in about 4 billion years, but what form it will take is unknown.

Brett said the shape of the question mark could be “an indication of a merger where these two galaxies interact with a gravitational force”. “This hook with the question mark at the top is very much like what we call a tidal tail, where the stream of stars and gas has kind of been separated and carried into space.”

Brett and Kaplan show that collecting more spectral data about the object will reveal more details such as its distance and chemical compositions.

Kaplan compared, “No one would do that though, because that’s like ‘a man found a chicken that looked like George Washington. ‘” But there are observations that can be made if there is enough motivation.