Breathtaking views of the spiral galaxy from NASA James Webb, Hubble compared
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a stunning new view of a spiral galaxy located more than 29 million light-years from Earth.
The Webb image shows the galaxy IC 5332 in “unprecedented detail”, according to NASA and the European Space Agency.
According to NASA and ESA, IC 5332 is about 66,000 light-years across, about a third smaller than our Milky Way. IC 5332 is also “almost perfectly face-on to Earth, allowing us to admire the symmetrical sweep of its spiral arms.”
In a statement on Tuesday, the ESA compared the Webb image with another dazzling view of the galaxy: an image from the Hubble Space Telescope, showing dark regions that appear to separate the spiral arms of IC 5332.
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On TwitterHubble called the collaboration a “galactic group project.”
Hubble’s ultraviolet and visible image was created using data from the telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3. Since ultraviolet and visible light “is much more likely to be scattered by interstellar dust than infrared light,” the ESA explains, dusty regions of the galaxy can be easily identified as darker in the image.
In contrast, Webb captured his image using the Mid-InfraRed instrument. “These same dusty regions are no longer dark in the Webb image (because) the galaxy’s mid-infrared light was able to pass through them,” writes the ESA.
The Webb Telescope Notes on Twitter pages that its MIRI image shows the “‘bones’ of galaxy IC 5332, usually hidden by dust.”
Both images also display a network of stars, which is also the result of the different instruments.
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“Different stars shine brighter at different wavelengths of light – so some stars are brighter in @NASAHubble view, while others are more visible with Webb,” Webb’s Twitter page reads. “Taken together, these two views provide us with a more complete understanding of the structure and composition of the galaxy IC 5332.”
USA Today
