New images from the James Webb Space Telescope show incredible views of the dusty galaxy NGC 6822 – and the different views captured by Webb instruments.
A series of new images from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the dusty, irregular galaxy NGC 6822 — and the different views captured by various Webb instruments.
Located relatively close by at 1.5 million light-years from Earth, this galaxy is notable for its low metallicity. Confusingly, when astronomers say metallicity they do not mean the amount of metals present in a galaxy, but rather the amount of all heavy elements — i.e., everything which isn’t hydrogen or helium. This factor is important because the very earliest galaxies in the universe were made up almost entirely of hydrogen and helium, meaning they had low metallicity, and the heavier elements were created over time in the heart of stars and were then distributed through the universe when some of those stars went supernova.
