NASA’s next-generation James Webb Space Telescope has done it again by snapping a mesmerizing photo of the NGC 1566 spiral galaxy. The collection of stars is filled with dust, and it provides an incredible view for those who are passionate about astronomy.
Thanks to the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) of the James Webb Space Telescope and Judy Schmidt’s ability to exploit its data, the new image of NGC 1566 was made possible, according to Universe Today.
New stars are born every day across the Universe, while others die at pretty much the same rate. In our Milky Way galaxy, for instance, about 7 stars per year are estimated to be produced.
Star formation is certainly doing its majestic thing in the NGC 1566 spiral galaxy as well, and the reddish areas are proof of it.
40 million light-years away
The NGC 1566 spiral galaxy is located very far away from us – roughly 40 million light-years away, to be more precise. The galaxy is also part of the Dorado constellation. Dorado is also one of the 88 modern constellations, and it has at least 5 stars with exoplanets revolving around them. Although scientists are confident that the Universe is teeming with exoplanets, only about 5,000 of these cosmic objects have been discovered so far.
Happy Friday, everyone. Here's a new view from JWST's MIRI of spiral galaxy NGC 1566. The colors in this image come from the emission of dust. Hardly any stars are visible. The reddish areas correspond with star formation, though.
Data via Proposal GO 2107 / @janiceleeastro pic.twitter.com/td6nocJvUF
— Judy Schmidt (@SpaceGeck) November 25, 2022
Schmidt explained as Universe Today quotes:
“I had to increase the saturation tremendously to make it colorful at all. The separation is not very much otherwise.”
She also added that it “took a bit of doing this time because the pipeline images available from the archive had a lot of alignment issues. I had to manually mosaic this.”
NGC 1566 is also an intermediate spiral galaxy, and it’s sometimes called the Spanish Dancer. It was first discovered over two centuries ago – in 1826, to be more precise. James Dunlop, a Scottish astronomer, was the one who discovered the galaxy.
