NASA's James Webb telescope clicks brilliant new image of Whirlpool Galaxy
Whirlpool galaxy
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), humanity's most powerful 'eye in the sky' yet is casting a fresh look at the Universe we've gazed at for centuries. It may seem to us that it is clicking pictures that we have already clicked. But these seemingly repeat pictures are literally in fresh 'light'.
Among the latest to hit our ever-busy social media timelines is an infrared pic of the 'Whirlpool Galaxy'. This galaxy is also known as M51 or NGC 5194.
The galaxy has been clicked before of course. The trusty, old Hubble Space Telescope has captured the marvellous glory of the galaxy before this. But the JWST has captured the latest image in infrared light.
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The Whirlpool Galaxy, as its name suggests, resembles a whirlpool. Just like flow of water when it is exiting a bathtub. The latest image has been taken by NIRCam and MIRI instruments of James Webb Space Telescope.
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The NASA image shows the warm dust that is concentrated along the galaxy's spiral arms. It is visible as dark red spots.
The bright areas along the arms are where the stars are forming. These regions lead to blue and white central ones.
The areas with orange and yellow areas represent regions of ionized gas which are created by recently formed star clusters.
Additionally, the image reveals cavernous black 'bubbles' through which we can see through the galaxy and can even witness stars that are shining behind it.
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The Whirlpool Galaxy is 31 million light-years away from us and lies in the Constellation Canes Venatici.
James Webb telescope is observing M51 galaxy as part of a series of observations called Feedback in Emerging extrAgalactic Star clusTers, or FEAST.
According to the European Space Agency (ESA), the FEAST observations were designed to "shed light on the interplay between stellar feedback and star formation in environments outside of our own galaxy, the Milky Way."
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