Updates James Webb Space Telescope updates

[Boxx]

Sorry for initially posting this in a new thread instead of this existing one!

I found these images of Cassiopeia A region by JWST. Then I decided to "stack" a part of the field of view in order to reveal the interstellar stream. Just imagine: the scene spans over 2 light-years and the animation covers "only" 40 days... personally, I'm just fascinated by that!



Scales: the diagonal of the pics are ca.2 light-years => now I'm wondering: could these streams move at relativistic speed or are they in the foreground? (hence, closer than the 11'000 light-years told in the source)

I'm estimating the general motion to be 0.023ly/40d = 0.023*(365/40) = ca.20% of the speed of light!!! => yes, the speed would be relativistic

 

[Felix24]

That's incredible! And just what I was hoping they would capture if they tried a timelapse!

I think what's going on is more akin to what you see when a sheet of laser light is scanned through a puff of smoke. It illuminates a thin 2D slice of smoke and shows swirls and details. The smoke itself isn't moving very fast relative to the laser light being scanned through it, but the apparent motion comes from the light passing through different regions of smoke, revealing different slices of the same cloud.

So in this case the stellar clouds themselves aren't moving very fast, but the sheet of light from the supernova is moving at the speed of light. The light is a very bright flash moving outward in the shape of an expanding sphere. As the sharp "shockwave" of light passes through the cloud, it ionizes the clouds in a thin slice, much like the sheet of laser light.

I wish they would take images of this region, like once a week or more frequently. If they combined the images, they'd be able to build a 3D map of the clouds in that area of space!

 

[Boxx]

So in this case the stellar clouds themselves aren't moving very fast, but the sheet of light from the supernova is moving at the speed of light. The light is a very bright flash moving outward in the shape of an expanding sphere. As the sharp "shockwave" of light passes through the cloud, it ionizes the clouds in a thin slice, much like the sheet of laser light.

That's indeed what is explained, then the dust is not "moving", it is just another layer of dust (further away) that is glowing in each picture, that makes this feeling of a motion: we don't observe the motion of dust, we observe the motion of light through an irregular ball of dust...

 

[GLS]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1957825832061227420

https://twitter.com/x/status/1957821221036269882

 

[GLS]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2013636640292434067

 

[GLS]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2024524148257501483

https://twitter.com/x/status/2026010717858459771

https://twitter.com/x/status/2026010727987781978

https://twitter.com/x/status/2026010732433723814

 

[GLS]

https://twitter.com/x/status/2036866794552533470