'Dragon's eye': Scientist creates image of galaxy using James Webb Space Telescope

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has revolutionised the way we 'look' at the Universe. While good ol' Hubble Space Telescope steadfastly sent ever-beautiful images of the Universe for decades, JWST is humanity's most powerful eye in the sky now. The telescope is going to let us peer into corners of the Universe never seem before. It has already started its work.

A scientist has used sets of data captured by JWST and made a brilliant image of a faraway galaxy. The purple swirls of the spiral galaxy are indeed a marvel to behold.

Time for science speak. Gabriel Brammer of University of Copenhagen in Denmark downloaded the datasets captured by JWST. While hubble focussed on capturing images of the cosmos in visible spectrum, JWST primarily captures images in infrared spectrum. Human eyes cannot naturally perceive infrared light.

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Brammer took the infrared datasets and 'translated' them into visible light (Red-Green-Blue). He then combined the three images that produced the mesmerising swirl of purple that we can see in the picture. Brammer is not associated with JWST team.

The galaxy captured in the pic is designated NGC 628. It appears purple in the image because of chemical composition of dust clouds in the galaxy.

“If our eyes could see in these mid-infrared wavelengths, the night sky would look a lot more like this picture, which I think would be spectacular, maybe a little terrifying,” says Brammer.

The center of the galaxy appears as if a dragon has its green gaze over us.

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