Stunning new image from James Webb Space Telescope captures the magnificent Cartwheel galaxy in never-before-seen detail. The telescope’s composite image, released Tuesday (Aug. 2), expands our understanding of the strange, wheel-like star system.
The Wheel galaxy is chaotic galaxy shrouded in hot dust, 500 million light years away The Earth. And hides a turbulent past.
“Its cartwheel-like appearance is the result of an intense event — a high-speed collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy not visible in this image,” NASA officials said in statement.
While the Cartwheel Galaxy is now shaped like a wheel, the galaxy was probably a spiral-like galaxy Milky Way before the collision. The collision occurred in the center of the Cartwheel galaxy, creating two visible rings that extended from the impact site. The bright inner ring teems with hot dust and clusters of young stars, while the outer ring is home to newborn stars and supernovae, according to the statement. Some of the original spiral elements are still visible as stripes between the two rings.
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The latest image reveals what happens to this galactic acrobat as it is altered by the collision.
Two smaller, companion galaxies sit to the left of the Wheel Galaxy, with many other galaxies in the background.
While the Hubble Space Telescope also captured images of the Cartwheel galaxy, the James Webb Space Telescope infrared the camera reveals more stars than can be seen Visible light. That’s because young stars are more easily seen through dust when viewed under infrared light, according to the statement.
The James Webb Space Telescope launched on December 25, 2021 as the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA’s new telescope can detect objects 100 times fainter than Hubble can detect.
Originally published on Live Science.
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