James Webb reveals spectacular image of a galaxy
A snapshot of the Cartwheel, a galaxy 500 million light-years away, was released on Tuesday by the US space agency.
The second ring of the Chariot Wheel, on the outside, has been expanding for 440 million years.
KEYSTONE/NASA via AP
NASA on Tuesday released a rare and stunning image of a galaxy 500 million light-years away, the Cartwheel Galaxy. Its rings appear with unprecedented clarity thanks to the brand new James Webb Space Telescope.
Like our Milky Way, astronomers believe the Cartwheel Galaxy was once a spiral galaxy. But a spectacular event gave it its shape: the collision with another smaller galaxy (not visible in the image).
This galaxy had already been observed by the Hubble Space Telescope, but the infrared capabilities of James Webb reveal new details hitherto hidden, allowing to see through a large amount of dust.
“transitional” state
The composite image, from observations by two scientific instruments of the telescope, also features two other smaller galaxies, as well as many others in the background.
The Cartwheel galaxy is still in a “transitional” state, NASA said in its statement. While the James Webb Telescope “gives us insight into (its) current state, it also gives us an idea of what happened to it in the past, and how it will evolve in the future”.
A computer-generated image of the James Webb Telescope.
KEYSTONE/Northrop Grumman/NASA via AP
A $10 billion engineering gem, the James Webb Telescope was launched into space about seven months ago, and is 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.
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