Tuesday, August 01, 2023

Cosmic Question Mark Spotted in Deep Space Suggests the Universe Is Stumped

George Dvorsky
Mon, July 31, 2023 

Do you realize, there’s a question mark floating in space?

The James Webb Space Telescope captured the eerie punctuation mark, found buried within an image of Herbig-Haro 46/47—a tightly bound pair of actively forming stars located 1,470 light years from Earth.

The high-resolution near-infrared image, captured by the Webb Space Telescope, a project from NASA in collaboration with the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, came out last week. But if you zoom in close enough (at the center bottom), you’ll see an astronomical feature that, from our perspective, bears an uncanny resemblance to a question mark, as Space.com points out.


The image, released last week, shows Herbig-Haro 46/47, and an apparent question mark in deep space (as shown by yellow indicators at bottom center)

The unexpected question mark suggests a cosmological message from aliens, God, or the posthuman civilization running our simulated universe, but its underlying cause is far less extraordinary.

In response to a Space.com query, representatives of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which manages Webb’s science operations, speculate that this cosmic question mark could be a distant galaxy or a pair of interacting galaxies. In those scenarios, gravitational forces could have manipulated these galactic structures, leading to the distorted, question mark-like shape. Interestingly, this might be the first time that astronomers have set their eyes on this distant object (or objects), which exists far outside the bounds of our Milky Way galaxy.


Zoomed in even further, the feature still exhibits a distinctly question mark-like appearance.

Matt Caplan, an assistant professor of physics at Illinois State University, reaffirmed this suspicion, telling Space.com that the unique feature is likely two galaxies in the process of merging. In his interpretation, the distinct shape of the upper object is a potential sign of the “larger galaxy getting tidally disrupted,” he told Space.com. In other words, the bigger galaxy is being pulled apart, or distorted, due to gravitational forces.

That we’re bound to see familiar shapes in mundane objects should be expected, especially when peering into the vastness of space. There’s the ghost-like Boomerang nebula, the spooky face of Arp-Madore 2026-424 s (two merging galaxies), and the jack-o-lantern Sun, as some other examples.

More: The weirdest images ever taken on Mars

Gizmodo

First test images from Euclid space telescope unveiled


AFP
Mon, July 31, 2023 

Project leaders believe the Euclid space telescope's test images show it is capable of ultimately fulfilling its mission to shed more light on dark matter and dark energy (-)

The Euclid space telescope, launched July 1 on a mission to shed more light on elusive dark matter and dark energy, has reached its destination orbit and on Monday its European operators revealed its first test images.

The star-filled snapshots were taken during the space telescope's commissioning -- a phase during which its powerful instruments are finely calibrated -- and therefore not representative of its full potential.

But the European Space Agency (ESA) says the tests already show it will be capable of fulfilling its massive mission.

"After more than 11 years of designing and developing Euclid, it's exhilarating and enormously emotional to see these first images," Euclid project manager Giuseppe Racca in a statement.

After blasting off from Florida, the satellite has traveled about one million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from Earth to its observational orbit.

From there, Euclid will chart the largest-ever map of the universe, encompassing up to two billion galaxies across more than a third of the sky.

By capturing light that has taken 10 billion years to reach Earth's vicinity, the map will also offer a new view of the 13.8-billion-year-old universe's history.

Its visible light camera will let it measure the shape of galaxies, while its near-infrared spectrometer and photometer -- developed with the help of NASA -- will allow it to measure how far away they are.

But when the instruments were switched on, researchers were spooked by "an unexpected pattern of light contaminating the images," the ESA said.

An investigation led researchers to believe that "some sunlight was creeping into the spacecraft, probably through a tiny gap," but that it was only detected when Euclid was oriented in certain ways.

"By avoiding certain angles," ESA said, Euclid's imaging device "will be able to fulfil its mission."

Scientists hope to use information gathered to address what Racca previously called a "cosmic embarrassment": that 95 percent of the universe remains unknown to humanity.

Around 70 percent is thought to be made of dark energy, the name given to the unknown force that is causing the universe to expand at an accelerated rate.

And 25 percent is believed to be dark matter, thought to bind the universe together and make up around 80 percent of its mass.

The telescope's scientific operations are due to begin in October.

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