A new photo taken by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revealed the hidden gaseous ‘bones’ structure of a distant galaxy – and it’s absolutely spectacular.
The cosmic knot of gas, dust and stars belongs to the spiral galaxy IC 5332 in the Sculptor constellation, more than 29 million light-years from Earth. Since it sits almost perfectly frontal Earthits spiral arms are incredibly clear to see.
This isn’t the first time IC 5332 has been photographed. The 66,000 light-year galaxy is about two-thirds the size of ours Milky Way – was also imaged in the past by the Hubble Space Telescope. But Hubble can’t see inside Infrared region of electromagnetic spectrumwhile the James Webb Space Telescope can. As a result, the updated image contains so many previously hidden details that it looks almost entirely different.
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“The Hubble image shows dark regions that seem to separate the spiral arms, while the Webb image shows more of a continuous tangle of structures that reflect the shape of the spiral arms,” according to officials from the European Space Agency (ESA), who included the new one have picture wrote in a statement.
ESA explained that this difference is due to the galaxy’s dust being much more likely to scatter ultraviolet and visible light (in which Hubble sees) than the infrared frequencies available to the JWST. Different stars are also visible in the two images, as some stars shine brighter than others at different frequencies.
To capture this image, JWST used its mid-infrared instrument – a special camera that needs to be supercooled to minus 446.8 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 266 degrees Celsius) to remove infrared interference effects from other heat sources. The JWST’s location in the frigid reaches of space, far from Earth, is also important for detecting faint infrared light, as our planet’s heat would drown out the distant galaxy’s signal.
About 100 times more powerful than the Hubble Space Telescope, the $10 billion space observatory was launched in December 2021 to a gravitationally stable location 1 million miles (1.5 million kilometers) from Earth — known as the Lagrange point — started. The JWST is the most advanced space telescope ever built, with the ability to peer into the atmospheres of far-flung exoplanets and read the earliest chapter of the universe’s history in its faintest glimmers — traveling through billions of years via expansion at infrared frequencies stretched were stuff of space-time.
Six months of careful setup and calibration ensured the telescope’s instruments and its 21-foot-wide (6.5 meters) gilded mirror were operational. After unveiling its first images in July, the telescope has delighted with a steady stream of stunning snapshots of our Universe, both near and far. To name a few, the telescope has captured stunning images of cartwheel galaxies; Einstein Rings; Orion’s Sword; Neptune’s ghostly halo; and the deepest picture of the universe ever produced.
In the case of IC 5332, by comparing the Hubble and JWST images of the distant galaxy, ESA scientists hope to learn more about the galaxy’s composition and structure, and how these translate to more general patterns observed in all spiral galaxies can become .
Originally published on Live Science.
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