Turn your thoughts away from cold, unfeeling light
And listen to the music of the night
Located in the constellation Pisces, the Phantom Galaxy is a grand-design spiral galaxy around 32 million light-years away. The first image combines data from the Webb and @nasahubble telescopes, giving us new insights into the galaxy’s symmetrical spiral arms, winding dust lanes, and bright areas of star formation. Keep swiping to see the telescopes’ individual views.
This galaxy is 100,000 light-years across and is suspected to have a black hole with the mass of 10,000 suns at its center. It is estimated that the Phantom Galaxy is home to about 100 billion stars, making it a little smaller than the Milky Way.
Image Descriptions (Credit: @nasawebb):
1. Hubble & Webb Combined View: Here, Webb's mid-infrared data has been combined with optical data from Hubble. Lacy red filaments spiraling out of the center of the galaxy are overlaid over a black field speckled with tiny blue stars. The red filaments contain pops of bright pink, which are star-forming regions. The red color is dust, and lighter oranges in the dust means that dust is hotter. Heavier older stars closer to the center of the galaxy are cyan and green and contribute to a greenish glow at the core.
2. Hubble Optical View: Arms carved of brown filaments spiral out from a bright galactic core. The arms have pops of pink, which are star-forming regions. Blue stars are speckled throughout the dark background.
3. Webb Mid-Infrared View: Delicate gray, web-like filaments form a spiral pattern winding outwards from the center of the galaxy. These spiral arms are traced by blue and bursts of pink, which are star-forming regions. A speckled cluster of young stars glow blue at the very heart of the galaxy.
Photo credits: Mid-Infrared – ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team; Optical – ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Chandar. Acknowledgement: J. Schmidt
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