The James Webb space super telescope has sent new images of the galaxy known as “Phantom Galaxy M74”, or “Phantom Galaxy M74”, in Portuguese. The capture was released this Monday (29) by the European Space Agency (ESA).
The images show the wealth of detail obtained thanks to the joint work of James Webb with the Hubble Space Telescope, which allowed us to better observe the galaxy’s core and the spirals formed by filaments of gas and dust. The lack of gas in the nuclear region of the galaxy provided an unobstructed view of the star cluster at the center of NGC 628, as the ghost galaxy is also known.
“Hubble’s sharp vision at ultraviolet and visible wavelengths complements Webb’s unparalleled sensitivity at infrared wavelengths, as well as observations from ground-based radio telescopes such as the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA),” the agency said.
Led by NASA, ESA and the Canadian Space Agency, the international Webb program aims to solve a series of mysteries of our Solar System by looking at places never before seen by mankind.
Webb captured M74 with his Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI) – an infrared device – to gather information about the early stages of star formation in the Universe. These observations are part of a larger effort to map 19 star-forming galaxies.
The agency explains that the collaboration of Webb’s super-precise observations at longer wavelengths will allow astronomers to identify “regions of star formation in galaxies, accurately measure the masses and ages of star clusters, and gain insights into the nature of tiny stars.” dust grains drifting in interstellar space.”
The combination of telescope data operating across the entire electromagnetic spectrum is able to provide data on astronomical objects more powerfully than when using just a single observatory.
The ghost galaxy had already been observed by Hubble years earlier and by astronomer Gabriel Brammer, from the University of Copenhagen, in July this year, in greater detail. Brammer used data captured by James Webb and released by the Space Telescope Institute.
With the help of software, the astronomer colored the image formed by the data, since the images obtained by the Mid-Infrared Instrument work in a spectrum that we cannot see, the infrared. Not only Brammer’s images, but all the exuberant images obtained by the telescopes receive color treatment so that it is possible to see the details originally invisible to the naked eye.
Source: CNN Brasil
