Webb telescope peers through dust for unprecedented look at black hole

Sign up to our free weekly IndyTech newsletter delivered straight to your inbox Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter Sign up to our free IndyTech newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy policy The James Webb Space Telescope has given scientists an unprecedented view of a distant black hole, peering through layers of dust to trace the structure and composition of the material swirling around the massive object. Webb recently trained its near infrared spectrometer, or NIRSpec instrument, on the supermassive black hole found at the heart of the top-most galaxy seen in Webb’s image of Stephan’s Quintet, one of the first five full-colour Webb images released by Nasa and collaborating agencies on 12 July. The result, as the European Space Agency explained in an illustration and series of posts on Twitter, is that Webb viewed the supermassive black hole in wavelengths never observed before, and corresponding to atomic hydrogen, molecular hydrogen, or two hydrogen atoms bound together, and electrically charged iron ions in the gas surrounding the black hole. An illustration of the chemical composition and structure of a supermassive black hole made possible by the James Webb Space Telescopes near infrared spectrometer instrument Taken together, the NIRSpec analysis of these elements allowed scientists to map the structure of gas flowing into the black hole to be consumed, as well as outflows, gas being thrown away by powerful jets of radiation generated by the intense compression of gas and dust swirling around the black hole.