This image consists of 1000 separate images collected into one image, with a resolution
of 150 million pixels, so that we can see how the universe was in its beginnings, when
its temperature was higher than allowing stability and the development of life.
This amazing view is in the northern hemisphere on constellation Pegasus, which is one of
the oldest celestial bodies we know of.
It is called Stephan's Quintet after the French astronomer Edouard Stephan, who found it in
1877 at the Marseille Observatory.
Since then, it has been the most studied galaxy cluster.
This group consists of 5 galaxies, and here I said a group, meaning a group of galaxies
and not a galaxy cluster, because the group consists of an average of 50 galaxies linked
to each other by gravitational forces, and each group has a level of brightness similar
to the level of the brightness of our galaxy, the Milky Way.
If this number increases to hundreds or thousands of galaxies, then it is called a cluster.
So, yesterday's picture is considered a cluster because it contains thousands of galaxies,
as you can see.
If you look at the image towards the galaxy on the far left, you will see that its color
is different from the rest, and it is the brightest of them all, called NGC 7320.
This galaxy was observed in the image because of its proximity to the remaining four in
the group, but it differs from them in physical properties.
As for the remaining four, they form a compact group because of their similar physical properties
in the so-called Hickson Compact Group 92.
This image was published by the James Webb Telescope in clearer details than we have
seen before, which showed us one of the most terrifying scenes, called the Intergalactic
Shockwave, located in the middle of the group.
The word intergalactic means between galaxies or is related to galaxies, and the word shockwave
means the reaction of a giant body moving at an incredible speed, similar to that done
by planes when breaking the sound barrier.
The massive body in this case is a galaxy called NGC 7318B, which is falling to the
center of the group at an incredible speed, estimated to be several million kilometers
per hour.
As NGC 7318B is moving at an incredible speed, it collides with clouds of gas in the group
of galaxies and produces a massive shock wave, much larger than our solar system itself.
Imagine when you jump in the pool with your body flat.
Then you take what we call a water sting, and the moment your body hits the water, a
sound like a small explosion occurs, after which the water shoots in all directions.
This is like a shockwave in space.
Just imagine that we replaced you with the galaxy NGC 7318B, and replaced the swimming
pool with clouds of gas, and replaced water splashes with streams of gases and energy
that are released everywhere as a result of the collision.
When the shock wave is sent out, it heats the gas in space and raises its temperature
to millions of degrees.
This causes the gas to release x-rays, which were caught by NASA's Chandra Observatory,
as well as infrared radiation, which was caught by the Spitzer Observatory.
However, the James Webb Telescope was able to get more accurate information.
One of these galaxies in the heart of the group from the top of the image is called
NGC 7319, located about 311 million light-years away.
It has faint arms as a result of overlapping with the rest of the galaxies in the group.
This galaxy contains at its heart one of the largest black holes known to us, with a mass
equivalent to 24 million times the mass of our sun.
This hole pulls everything around it towards its dark core.
It even pulls light equal to the light produced by 40 billion suns!
In physics in general and astronomy in particular, there is a term called redshift.
To explain this, we say that light is divided into 7 colors, including red.
When we measure the light that reaches us from celestial bodies and we see the location
of this body based on the red color in the spectrometer, we can determine whether this
body is approaching us or moving away.
As a result, the farther this body is from us, the more it shifts towards the red color.
The explanation for this is that the universe is expanding and the objects in it are moving
away from each other every second, and therefore the light travels a longer distance to reach
us, and this is what makes it closer to the red color on the side of the spectrometer.
The galaxy on the left, called NGC 7320, is farther from the red color than the other
four galaxies, which means that it is closest to us, with a distance of about 40 million
light-years, while the rest of the group is at distances ranging from 210 to 340 million
light-years.