A new photograph from the James Webb Space Telescope is a dazzling explosion of color – but the image also suggests that water can survive even when relatively close to a black hole.
The photograph shows a star named IRS 3, which is .55 light years away from the black hole near the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, Sagittarius A*. While the photograph itself looks worthy of wall art, the new image highlights a significant find for researchers.
According to the European Space Agency and the international team of researchers, the photograph suggests the presence of oxygen-rich dust as well as the presence of water surrounding the star.
The data was picked up by James Webb’s Mid-Infrared camera – the first time that IRS 3 has been analyzed using infrared. The mid-infrared camera is capable of looking through dust clouds and helping to analyze the temperatures and chemical composition in space.
The international team reconstructed the star’s envelope by running the infrared data through simulations built around how light is known to travel.
Researchers previously thought that IRS 3’s bright mid-infrared profile was due to carbon, but the recent study suggests that IRS 3 is oxygen-rich. Researchers said that the evidence of water is a first of its kind for similar celestial objects.
“The detection of water is especially exciting because it shows that molecular material can survive in an environment dominated by intense radiation,” said Macarena Garcia Marin of ESA, one of the study’s co-authors. “This tells us that even close to a supermassive black hole, stars can continue contributing material back into their surroundings.”
IRS 3 sits in a rather hostile part of space. The area has a high concentration of stars as well as intense radiation. The study suggests that water and oxygen are more capable of surviving those harsh environments than previously believed.
IRS 3 is an aging star, and the presence of oxygen and water suggests that these late-stage stars can still influence their surroundings and emit the types of ingredients used in forming new stars and planets, even amid one of the more harsh regions of space.
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