The enigmatic object takes the shape of a question mark and appears just below two young stars in the Orion constellation, as recently revealed by the James Webb Telescope team from the European Space Agency (ESA).
Graphic representation of the mysterious object and the actual (small) image reveal that from a different angle, it resembles a floating reddish-orange question mark in the cosmos – Image: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScl.
James Webb is the world’s most powerful space telescope developed and operated by NASA. ESA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) are also involved in this mega-project, aiming to explore the early universe and the potential habitability of neighboring worlds.
Initially, the ESA’s James Webb team was observing the details of a pair of young stars called Herbig-Haro 46/47, surrounded by a disk of material that nurtures them over millions of years.
But just below the star pair, they stumbled upon something mysterious: A question mark teasingly appeared in the sky, described by scientists as if the universe is asking us something.
The identity of the question mark-shaped object cannot be determined yet, but its color and shape have led scientists to speculate on some hypotheses.
In an interview with Space, representatives from the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScl – USA), where James Webb’s main operations are managed, suggested that it could be a distant galaxy or interacting galaxies leading to distortions.
The object’s red color indicates that it is quite far away, as objects at a distance and continuously receding due to the expansion of the universe tend to appear red due to the redshift phenomenon.
Although it appears near objects located 1,470 light-years away, the actual distance of the question mark could be billions of light-years.
Meanwhile, PGS Matt Caplan, a physicist from the University of Illinois, believes that this question mark is a result of the merger of two galaxies, with the hook-like part formed by a disrupted giant galaxy.