See And Download The New Webb-Hubble Mash-Up Of A Spiral Galaxy 32 Million Light-Years Away

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The European Space Agency (ESA) has published a beautiful new image created by data from both the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).

In the wake of JWST’s debut collection in July, images from the billion-dollar space telescope have been few and far between, though we have seen Jupiter in infrared, the most distant star thanks to a ripple in spacetime and a “ring galaxy’” in 4K.

The main image published (above) is a mash-up of JWST’s and the Hubble Space Telescope’s (HST) separate images of the “Phantom Galaxy,” a distant spiral galaxy 32 million light-years from the solar system in the constellation of Pisces.

The red colours mark dust threaded through the arms of the galaxy while lighter oranges being areas of hotter dust, according to the caption on the download page. Young stars are blue, old stars are cyan and green while bubbles of star formation are pink.

Also published was JWST’s image of M74 as a standalone (below), a clearer version of some earlier images of the same object. It’s available to download for the first time, in HD quality.

The image (above) shows delicate filaments of gas and dust in the spiral arms at the heart of M74, which is known as a “grand design spiral” for its perfect structure. As there’s no dust in the way it’s also possible to see the star cluster at the galaxy’s center.

Expect to see a lot of similarly stunning blends of JWST and HST images in the next couple decades.

JWST sees in the infrared part of the spectrum while HST sees mostly in ultraviolet and visible wavelengths. They’re the perfect complement and proof, if any more was needed, that JWST should not be called “the new Hubble.”

Here are the three images, with HST’s on the left, the mash-up in the middle and JWST’s on the right:

JWST’s observations of M74—the first galaxy it studied after “first light’ in July 2022—was part of the international Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) survey now using Webb to survey the stars, star clusters, and dust that lie within 19 nearby galaxies. All 19 have already been observed and imaged by HST.

The aim is to reveal early star formation when gas collapses to form stars and heats up the surrounding dust. It’s hoped that JWST’s infrared observations can add new data on the location of star-forming regions in the galaxies. They should also help astronomers calculate the masses and ages of star clusters.

The images come from JWST’s MIRI instrument, which was contributed by ESA and NASA. MIRI, which stands for Mid-Infrared Instrument, is a camera and a spectrograph that sees light in the mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Webb is the most ambitious and complex space science telescope ever constructed, with a massive 6.5-meter primary mirror that will be able to detect the faint light of far-away stars and galaxies. It’s designed to detect infrared light emitted by distant stars, planets and clouds of gas and dust.

It’s initial 10-year mission Webb will study the solar system, directly image exoplanets, photograph the first galaxies, and explore the mysteries of the origins of the Universe.

Wishing you clear skies and wide eyes.

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