James Webb, the latest space telescope jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), has unveiled a clear shape of a spiral galaxy.
According to the scientific community on the 29th, ESA recently released an image of the spiral galaxy ‘IC 5332’ photographed by James Webb and compared the image of the same galaxy taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.
James Webb’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) has succeeded in capturing extremely detailed images of spiral galaxies. IC 5332 Galaxy is about 29 million light-years from Earth, and about 66,000 light-years in diameter, slightly smaller than the Milky Way. big level.
A common view of galaxies is that they maintain a round shape as a picture taken by Hubble, and the dark spaces of the universe are clearly separated by spiral arms. On the other hand, the galaxy photographed by James Webb maintains its spiral shape, but even shows celestial bodies tangled between the spiral arms.
This difference is due to the presence of cosmic dust scattered within the galaxy. Ultraviolet and visible light are easily scattered by cosmic dust, which causes Hubble to darken areas of dust that UV and visible light cannot pass through. But because James Webb uses infrared light, he can capture even these dusty areas with clarity.
James Webb, using infrared light, is showing a new picture of the celestial bodies known to mankind through Hubble. In July, the bright Southern Ring Nebula, the Carina Nebula (Carina Nebula), was released, and recently, the clear image of Neptune’s rings was also captured.
[서울=뉴시스]