JWST Identifies Cooling Gas in Phoenix Cluster, Unlocking Star Formation Process

Observations from the james webb space telescope This discovery provides an insight of how the stars become despite the presence of a supermasive black hole at its core. Researchers have confirmed that the cluster has the largest known reservoir of hot gas cooling at different rates.

JWST’s role in identifying missing cooling gas

according to a Study Published in nature, data from JWST’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) has allowed researchers to detect gas cooling at 540,000 ° F (300,000 ° C). It was found to be stuck in cavities within the gas cluster, which was the first unattainable area.

Michael McDonald, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an astronomer and head investigator of the study. told Space.com that earlier studies failed to detect this gas because only the extreme temperature ends of the spectrum were average.

Supermasive Black Hole and Star Formation in Phoenix Cluster

Despite a central black hole over 10 billion times from the Sun’s mass, the Phoenix cluster continues to build stars at an unprecedented rate. The discovery of trapped cooling gas helps explain this contradiction.

Conclusions challenge previous beliefs about Galaxy Cluster cooling processes and suggest that similar techniques can be used to study other groups. Researchers aim to apply these methods to understand the cooling mechanism in space.