It may have become almost routine that Nasa and Esa take new pictures of the James-Webbrelease the space telescope, which has been doing its work for several months at a distance of 1.5 million kilometers from Earth. But it is compared to the older pictures, about the venerable Hubble-telescope, but always a feeling as if you were putting on glasses and finally seeing sharply. This impression is also conveyed in the latest image in the gallery, an image of the galaxy Messier 74 (M74) in the constellation of Pisces, also known as the “Phantom Galaxy”.
At a distance of around 32 million light-years, the galaxy is comparatively close to Earth and is oriented in such a way that you can see its very clearly pronounced spiral arms head-on, which is why it has long been popular with astronomers. Never before, however, has one been able to recognize their structures so precisely.
One looks directly into the central star cluster of the galaxy
From a scientific point of view, the central area, which can be seen in blue in the picture, is particularly interesting – there Webb works with infrared light, the picture is colored afterwards. Because there is little gas there, you can look right into the galaxy’s central star cluster, a very bright and dense region where new stars are forming. Such images should help to understand how the first phases of star formation take place in the nearby universe.
The image is part of a larger project by the international Phangs collaboration to observe 19 galaxies around Earth, of which the Hubble-Telescope and also telescopes have taken pictures on earth. The combination of earlier recordings in the optical field with the WebbAccording to Nasa, images at longer wavelengths should help to identify regions of star formation in the galaxies. In addition, the masses and ages of star clusters are to be determined and the interstellar dust is to be examined.