November 5, 2024

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James Webb Space Telescope sees ‘ghostly’ interstellar light

James Webb Space Telescope sees ‘ghostly’ interstellar light

The first deep field image of the universe taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) allowed scientists to study the faint, ghostlike light from intergalactic orphan stars in galaxy clusters.

These stars are not gravitationally bound to the galaxies, they are pulled away from their homes and drifted into intergalactic space by the enormous tidal forces generated between galaxies in clusters. The light from these stellar orphans is called intracluster light and is so faint that it has only one percent of the brightness of the darkest sky to be seen a land.