Webb telescope captures new detail of Phantom Galaxy:
The James Webb space telescope has revealed dazzling new detail of a previously known slice of the cosmos 32 million light-years away, in a new picture released by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).
The infrared technology of the telescope, launched in December 2021, has allowed for an even clearer view of the so-called Phantom Galaxy than astronomers had ever seen before.
[...] The whirling celestial form, officially called M74, is located in the Pisces constellation 32 million light-years away from Earth.
The Webb image shows the galaxy's brilliant white, red, pink and light blue appendages of dust and stars swirling around a bright blue center, all set against the dark backdrop of deep space.
M74 was previously photographed by the Hubble telescope, which captured the galaxy's spiraling blue and pink arms, but instead showed its glowing center as a soft yellow.
The Phantom Galaxy is a "favorite target for astronomers studying the origin and structure of galactic spirals," NASA and the ESA said. The picture taken by Webb will help them "learn more about the earliest phases of star formation in the local Universe," and record more information about 19 star-forming galaxies close to our own Milky Way.
The JWST and Hubble pictures are quite beautiful and very wallpaper-worthy and show the benefits a larger aperture and being able to see through interstellar gas makes. More information about M74. [hubie]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday September 02 2022, @11:33AM (1 child)
https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/09/01/nasas-webb-takes-its-first-ever-direct-image-of-distant-world/ [nasa.gov]
Nothing to see here.
https://www.stsci.edu/files/live/sites/www/files/home/jwst/science-execution/observing-schedules/_documents/2224108f02_report_20220829.txt [stsci.edu]
The Aug 29 - Sept 5 [stsci.edu] schedule [stsci.edu] previously had two observations of Eris, but it looks like one of them got replaced by Quaoar [wikipedia.org]. So potentially two best ever images of dwarf planets incoming. The last observation target on the schedule is Orus [wikipedia.org], which is a 53 km asteroid that will be visited by the Lucy spacecraft in 2028.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday September 03 2022, @09:59PM
https://www.stsci.edu/files/live/sites/www/files/home/jwst/science-execution/observing-schedules/_documents/2224807f03_report_20220905.txt [stsci.edu]
Mars and another Lucy target, Patroclus [wikipedia.org], next week.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday September 02 2022, @02:30PM (3 children)
JWST takes images in the infrared spectrum. It's the scientists that use that data to make white, red, blue etc colors.
If you drove out there and took a look at it, it would look nothing like that image.
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2022, @02:35PM
You just need to drive out there and put on your spec ops night vision goggles, and put a layer of pink cellophane on top of them.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 02 2022, @06:04PM (1 child)
You'll need to explain what "real colors" are then, because imaging sensors see a lot more wavelengths than our puny human capabilities. Your cell phone adds filters to the pixels to restrict the wavelength proportions that hit it, then it weights those values to produce a "fake" color image of what it looks like to our eye. Pry the "IR filter" off of your camera sensor and you'll see that your pictures don't look "real" despite the fact that the same photons are hitting it. You could easily weigh the pixel values to correspond to the response of someone who is colorblind. Are those not "real colors" to that person? Here, there are no "real colors" because our eyes can't see these wavelengths and the concept of colors is not defined. But our eyes are set up to view three colors, and our display technology is set up to stick any three signals into different color channels to make a RGB image.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Friday September 02 2022, @11:00PM
Really? I need to explain how they take infrared and ultraviolet data from various sensors, data that our physical eyeballs can't see, and make pretty pictures the press uses to justify the $$$ spent to MAGA types?
Or us weirdos who actually understand the science and think the money is well spent?
I just passed a drug test. My dealer has some explaining to do.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Snospar on Friday September 02 2022, @03:04PM
This story posted just after the one about hackers hiding malware in stunning JWST images!