The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has made a groundbreaking discovery about the Phoenix cluster, a massive collection of galaxies 5.8 billion light-years from Earth. The JWST has observed how a "cosmic phoenix" cools off to birth stars within this cluster.
The Phoenix cluster is unique because it has a high rate of star formation despite the presence of a supermassive black hole at its center. In most galaxy cluster
s, the black hole's energy output prevents gas from cooling enough to form stars. However, the JWST has revealed that in the Phoenix cluster, the gas is able to cool down and clump together, eventually leading to the formation of new stars.
This discovery is significant because it challenges our understanding of how galaxy clusters form and evolve. It also suggests that the Phoenix cluster may be a key to understanding how galaxies in the early Universe formed stars.
The JWST's observations have shown that the Phoenix cluster has the largest reservoir of hot, cooling gas of any galaxy cluster. This gas is cooling at a rate of about 100 times the mass of the Sun per year, which is enough to form a significant number of new stars.
The JWST has also detected a large amount of warm gas in the Phoenix cluster. This warm gas is thought to be the precursor to the cold gas that eventually forms stars. The presence of this warm gas suggests that the Phoenix cluster is in a state of active star formation.
The JWST's observations of the Phoenix cluster are ongoing. Scientists are continuing to study the data to learn more about how this unique galaxy cluster is able to form stars at such a high rate.