The James Webb telescope shows incredible images of the Cartwheel galaxy

The images have been taken with different cameras of the telescope

The James Webb telescope continues to demonstrate its potential with the spectacular and detailed images it has managed to take of the Cartwheel galaxy, a galaxy already known. In the images you can see in great detail the different stars individually, as well as the star-forming regions in the galaxy.

Likewise, it has revealed the behavior of the black hole that acts as the axis of the Cartwheel, a formation that is located about 500 million light years away, in the Sculptor constellation. It is a lenticular galaxy, of which we did not know anything for a long time since there was too much dust hiding its mystery, now instead we know that it was formed as a result of a collision between a large spiral galaxy and another smaller galaxy, which caused massive changes throughout its structure.

This is why the galaxy has two rings: a bright inner one and a colorful surrounding one. “These two rings expand outward from the center of the collision, like ripples in a pond after a stone is thrown. Because of these distinctive features, astronomers call it a ‘ring galaxy’, a less common structure than spiral galaxies like our Milky Way.”, they have explained from the European Space Agency (ESA).

Inside you can see a bright core containing a huge amount of hot dust and, around it, gigantic clusters of young stars. Meanwhile, on the outside that has been expanding for 440 million years, it is dominated by star formation and supernovae. As this ring expands, it collides with surrounding gas, triggering star formation.

Without a doubt, these images will delight fans and lovers of space and stars, who can see the different images taken with the different cameras on the official NASA website.

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