Amazing: NASA’s Webb captures Cartwheel Galaxy

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently captured the chaos of the Cartwheel Galaxy, located nearly 500 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor. It also captured two smaller companion galaxies against a backdrop of many other galaxies.

This detailed image, created by Webb’s intense infrared vision, revealed new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole. It shows how the Cartwheel Galaxy has changed over billions of years.

The Cartwheel Galaxy, as seen in the image, appears like a cartwheel. Its appearance results from an intense event – a high-speed collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy (not visible in this image).

NASA officials said: “Galactic-scale collisions cause a cascade of various smaller events between the galaxies involved; the wagon wheel is no exception.”

The galaxy contains two rings: a bright inner ring and a surrounding colored ring. Both rings spread outward from the center of the collision, like ripples in a pond after a stone has been thrown into it. Because of these exciting features of the galaxy, this galaxy is also known as the ring galaxy.

Huge young star clusters can be seen in the brightest regions of the core, which also contains an enormous amount of hot matter. On the other hand, star formation and supernovae predominate in the outer ring, which has been growing for almost 440 million years. As it grows, this ring collides with the surrounding gas, leading to star formation.

Other telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, have previously studied the wagon wheel. But the dramatic galaxy has been shrouded in mystery – perhaps literally given the amount of dust obscuring the view. Webb’s ability to detect infrared light now unveils new insights into the nature of the wagon wheel.

NASA said “The Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), Webb’s primary imager, looks into the near-infrared from 0.6 to 5 microns and sees critical wavelengths of light that can reveal even more stars than can be observed in visible light. This is because young stars, many of which are forming in the outer ring, are less obscured by dust when observed in infrared light. In this image, NIRCam data is colored blue, orange, and yellow. The galaxy shows many blue dots, single stars or clusters of star formation. NIRCam also shows the difference between the smooth distribution or shape of the older stellar populations and the dense dust in the core compared to the clumpy shapes associated with the younger stellar populations outside.”

“However, learning finer details about the dust inhabiting the galaxy requires Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). MIRI data is colored red in this composite image. It shows regions within the Cartwheel Galaxy rich in hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds, as well as silicate dust, like much of Earth’s dust. These regions form a series of spiraling spokes that essentially form the skeleton of the galaxy. These spokes are evident in previous Hubble observations released in 2018, but they become much clearer in this Webb image.”