The hypnotizing swirls of the Phantom Galaxy are magnificent in any light!
Here are three different views of the same region. The first image shows Webb's mid-infrared view, the second image combines Hubble and Webb data, and the last image displays Hubble's optical view.
With two space telescopes' powers combined, we can get a more complete view of the universe. While @NASAHubble’s previously revealed bright areas of star formation in visible and ultraviolet wavelengths, Webb’s infrared vision is helping to pinpoint these regions, accurately measure the masses and ages of star clusters, and gain insight into interstellar dust.
This observation is part of the PHANGS survey.
Image Descriptions:
1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
Credits: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team; ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Chandar. Acknowledgement: J. Schmidt
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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has peered into the chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy, revealing new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole. Webb’s powerful infrared gaze produced this detailed image of the Cartwheel and two smaller companion galaxies against a backdrop of many other galaxies. This image provides a new view of how the Cartwheel Galaxy has changed over billions of years.
The Cartwheel Galaxy, located about 500 million light-years away in the Sculptor constellation, is a rare sight. Its appearance, much like that of the wheel of a wagon, is the result of an intense event – a high-speed collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy not visible in this image. Collisions of galactic proportions cause a cascade of different, smaller events between the galaxies involved; the Cartwheel is no exception.
The collision most notably affected the galaxy’s shape and structure. The Cartwheel Galaxy sports two rings — a bright inner ring and a surrounding, colorful ring. These two rings expand outwards from the center of the collision, like ripples in a pond after a stone is tossed into it. Because of these distinctive features, astronomers call this a “ring galaxy,” a structure less common than spiral galaxies like our Milky Way.
The bright core contains a tremendous amount of hot dust with the brightest areas being the home to gigantic young star clusters. On the other hand, the outer ring, which has expanded for about 440 million years, is dominated by star formation and supernovas. As this ring expands, it plows into surrounding gas and triggers star formation.
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