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VS’A breathtaking film that speaks volumes about possibilities of the new James-Webb telescope and on its differences Its Hubble ancestor Still in service. That’s because the demon galaxy we detect in this image, known as Messier 74 or NGC 628, was immortal as seen from above through two telescopes. The difference in vision of the two instruments, visible light for Hubble and infrared for James-Webb, takes on its full meaning here.
The new image actually brings out a structure called this grand-style spiral galaxy — because its spiral arms are large and well-defined — and it’s located 32 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pisces. James-Webb brings out his gas and dust skeleton incredibly prominently. This cosmic formation has a wingspan of about 95,000 light years, comparable to our own galaxy, although Messier 74 is much less massive than the Milky Way (about ⅕). Another point in common: both have a supermassive black hole at their center. However, in Webb’s image, the details are so fine that you almost seem to see it.
Read moreJames-Webb: Clichés explained by astrophysicists
This new image is part of 40 terabytes of data (1 TB = 1 million megabytes) collected during the space lab’s test phases and released to the scientific community by NASA shortly after. Release of the telescope’s first official science images James-Webb Space. Little by little, researchers are analyzing them and finding treasures.
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