María Jimena Rodríguez works at the University of Arizona / Web
The researcher from La Plata belonging to CONICET, María Jimena Rodríguez, was the protagonist of a historic event for science, since she found hidden star clusters with data from the James Webb Space Telescope. They are located in a galaxy located 60 million light years from planet Earth. Her extraordinary work was published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
“There were 67 clusters that were detected, being a historical number”
As highlighted, the discovery occurred thanks to the capacity of the instrument used, since it has enormous power with its dim infrared light to distinguish details. In total, 67 clusters were detected, a truly historic number for the matter.
The transcendental aspect of Rodríguez’s work was that the number of clusters found is unprecedented, since it exceeds those obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The same, which orbits outside the Earth’s atmosphere since 1990, detected a number of 18.
STORY OF AN INVESTIGATION
Rodríguez, who belongs to the Institute of Astrophysics of La Plata (IALP, CONICET-UNLP), traveled in the middle of this year to work at the University of Arizona. The task assigned to it was to analyze the data acquired by the James Webb Space Telescope, in order to develop the embedded star-forming regions.
These are areas where stars are currently being born that are still surrounded by the molecular cloud that gave them shape and can only be observed by the infrared vision of the technological apparatus.
The work was successful, since it managed to detect, after an arduous investigation, young stellar clusters of less than 2 million years, which were hidden in the nebulae of the galaxy NGC7496 and which are 60 million light years away. This was produced by the data collected by James Webb and also by the help of an extensive group of experts from Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.
WHAT ARE STAR CLUSTERS?
In scientific language, clusters are a group of stars that were born together inside nebulae of dust and molecular gas. They remain hidden inside the nebulae, due to the condensations of the nebular material that attract the movement of the surrounding gas. Without a point element, it is very difficult to see them in visible light. The infrared light from the telescope was relentless in penetrating the properties of gas and dust, in order to see the clusters before they crop up within their environment. Undoubtedly, an unprecedented fact that marks a before and after in science, for future research related to the subject.
“Clusters are a group of stars that were born together inside nebulae”
After the great work done with the James Webb, the researcher from La Plata will continue with the research to meet other objectives. First of all, she will analyze other galaxies in order to broaden the knowledge about the physical processes that the nebulae have inside.
There, together with other experts, he will try to advance in the understanding of how star clusters are created, the time scales that they transit throughout their gestation and also the times in which they, already with a form, leave the nebulae and They are directly observed with visible light. Rodríguez will continue with his work at the University of Arizona, where he will spend a year.
