March 28, 2024

Balkan Travellers

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stars and galaxies against black background

The James Webb Space Telescope looks at a lone dwarf galaxy

The most powerful space telescope currently operating has zoomed in on a lone dwarf galaxy in the vicinity of the galaxy, photographing it in amazing detail.

About 3 million light-years from Earth, the dwarf galaxynamed Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte (WLM) to three astronomers instrumental in discovering it, and it’s close enough that James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) can distinguish individual stars while still studying large numbers of stars same time. The dwarf galaxy, in the constellation Cetus, is one of the most distant members of the Local Group of galaxies that contains our galaxy. Its isolated nature and lack of interactions with other galaxies, including Milky Waymakes WLM useful for studying how stars develop in smaller galaxies.