Skip to main content

Webb and Hubble: IC 5332


What does the universe look like through infrared goggles? Our eyes can only see visible light, but astronomers want to see more. Today’s APOD shows spiral galaxyIC 5332 as seen by two NASA telescopes: Webb in mid-infrared and Hubble in ultraviolet and visible light. To toggle between the two space-based views just slide your cursor over the image (or follow this link). The Hubble image highlights the spiral arms of the galaxy separated by dark regions, whereas the Webb image reveals a finer, more tangled structure. Interstellar dust scatters and absorbs light from the stars in the galaxy, causing the dark dust lanes in the Hubble image, and then emits heat in infrared light, so dust glows in this Webb image. The Mid-InfraRed Instrument on Webb needs to operate at a chilling temperature of -266ºC (or - 447ºF), otherwise it would detect infrared radiation from the telescope itself. Combining these observations, astronomers connect the “small scale” of gas and stars to the truly large scale of galactic structure and evolution.

from NASA https://ift.tt/iWRqACS
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Untitled

Why is our Sun so active now ? No one is sure. An increase in surface activity was expected because our Sun is approaching solar maximum in 2025. However, last month our Sun sprouted more sunspot s than in any month during the entire previous 11-year solar cycle -- and even dating back to 2002. The featured picture is a composite of images taken every day from January to June by NASA 's Solar Dynamic Observatory . Showing a high abundance of sunspots, large individual spots can be tracked across the Sun's disk, left to right, over about two weeks. As a solar cycle continues, sunspots typically appear closer to the equator. Sunspots are just one way that our Sun displays surface activity -- another is flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that expel particles out into the Solar System . Since these particles can affect astronauts and electronics, tracking surface disturbances is of more than aesthetic value . Conversely, solar activity can have very high aesthetic v...
Post a Comment
Read more

NGC 1365: Majestic Island Universe

Barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 is truly a majestic island universe some 200,000 light-years across. Located a mere 60 million light-years away toward the faint but heated constellation Fornax , NGC 1365 is a dominant member of the well-studied Fornax Cluster of galaxies. This sharp color image shows the intense, reddish star forming regions near the ends of the galaxy's central bar and along its spiral arms. Seen in fine detail, obscuring dust lanes cut across the galaxy's bright core. At the core lies a supermassive black hole. Astronomers think NGC 1365's prominent bar plays a crucial role in the galaxy's evolution, drawing gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the central black hole . from NASA https://ift.tt/A0ESVno
Post a Comment
Read more

The Observable Universe

How far can you see? Everything you can see, and everything you could possibly see, right now, assuming your eyes could detect all types of radiations around you -- is the observable universe . In light, the farthest we can see comes from the cosmic microwave background , a time 13.8 billion years ago when the universe was opaque like thick fog. Some neutrinos and gravitational waves that surround us come from even farther out, but humanity does not yet have the technology to detect them. The featured image illustrates the observable universe on an increasingly compact scale , with the Earth and Sun at the center surrounded by our Solar System , nearby stars , nearby galaxies , distant galaxies , filaments of early matter , and the cosmic microwave background . Cosmologists typically assume that our observable universe is just the nearby part of a greater entity known as "the universe" where the same physics applies. However, there are several lines of popular but spe...
Post a Comment
Read more