NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) continues to amaze us, and the latest photo from the observatory shows the spiral galaxy Messier 74 (M74) in all its glory.
The image, captured by Webb’s MIRI instrument, shows the galaxy’s vast spiral arms colored a dark purple, a sight that has delighted astronomers beyond measure.
“Let’s see what JWST observed yesterday… Oh my God,” Gabriel Brammer, an associate professor at the University of Denmark, wrote on an online social network. Incidentally, Brammer used data from Webb to produce the image.
This is just the beginning of the telescope’s ground-breaking scientific operations. RIGHT Futurism.
Messier 74, a classic example of a spiral galaxy
M74, also known as NGC 628, is about 32 million light-years from Earth and is often used as a classic example of a spiral galaxy, a class of galaxies consisting of a flat, rotating risk with an aura of stars swarming around him.
About 60 percent of galaxies are thought to be spiral, according to the European Space Agency, including our own galaxy, the Milky Way.
As a side note, the purple hue is caused by interstellar polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that make “the filters used for the blue and red channels brighter compared to the green,” explained Brammer.
“The perspective of the MIRI instrument is mind-blowing”
“I want to remind you that many of the people who worked on JWST are children of the 1960s. The prospect of the MIRI instrument is mind-blowing,” said Mark McCaughrean, Webb Telescope team scientist.
Although NASA’s Hubble Telescope has spent much of its time analyzing these spiral features, Webb will allow us to look in more detail with unprecedented precision. If the photo of the Messier 74 galaxy is any indication, then we certainly have a lot more to see.