IMAGE: An incredible sight. NASA presented pictures of space from the Webb telescope
As the English name of the galaxy suggests, the result of the collision looks like a car wheel. People observe one bright inner circle and another outer one that is larger and colorful. These characteristics make Cartwheel one of the ring galaxies, which are significantly rarer than spiral galaxies similar to our Milky Way.
The brighter inner ring is made up of a huge amount of hot dust, in which giant young star clusters form, which can be seen in photos as the brightest areas of the ring. In contrast, the rim, which has been expanding for about 440 million years, is dominated by star formation and star extinction, or supernovae. “As this ring expands, it cuts into the surrounding gas and triggers further star formation,” NASA said.
A large galaxy resembling a wagon wheel. It is accompanied by two smaller spiral galaxies of approximately the same size.
The Webb telescope is not the first with which scientists are trying to observe a rare galaxy. They also tried it with the Hubble Space Telescope. However, he and other observatories were prevented from observing it in detail by the accumulated dust, which until now successfully hid the secrets of the galaxy.
The advantage of the Webb telescope
In this respect, “Webb” had one advantage over the others. Because it captures infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye, it was able to record details that other telescopes could not.
Thanks to the telescope, astronomers thus discover new information about individual stars and their formation in a chaotic galaxy. They can also take a closer look at the black hole at the very center of the galaxy. “Webb’s observations underscore that Cartwheel is in a very transitional stage, and the galaxy, which was similar to the Milky Way before the collision, will continue to transform,” NASA and ESA experts explained.
The new image is a composite of data obtained by Webb’s Near-Infrared Electromagnetic Spectrum (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
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Data from NIRCam are shown in blue, orange and yellow. You can see a lot of blue dots on the image, which represent individual stars or pockets of star formation. The camera also reveals the difference between the uninterrupted distribution of older stellar populations and dense dust in the galaxy’s core, and the clumsy lumpy shapes of young stellar populations outside.
MIRI data is highlighted in red. They allow astronomers to find out more detailed information about the dust in the galaxy. “The telescope reveals in the image areas that are rich in hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds such as silicate dust, which are also found on Earth,” NASA said.
According to experts, these spiral rays essentially form the skeleton of the entire galaxy. The aforementioned rays could already be observed in a lower quality in images from the Hubble telescope from 2018.
The Webb Telescope officially began scientific operations on July 12, the same day NASA released its first images. The agencies plan to release more footage in the coming weeks.
