#Dope nasa wallpaper full#

The difference in a side-by-side comparison of the images is due to the galaxy’s dusty regions.

The images reveal different stars, depending on the detectable wavelengths of each telescope. “The Hubble image shows dark regions that seem to separate the spiral arms, whereas the Webb image shows more of a continual tangle of structures that echo the spiral arms’ shape,” according to the release. The Hubble Space Telescope previously observed the galaxy in ultraviolet and visible light using its Wide Field Camera 3. (Infrared is the term scientists use to refer to light that has wavelengths longer than humans can detect with the naked eye.) MIRI is the only Webb instrument that is sensitive to light on mid-infrared wavelengths, a type of wavelength that can only be observed by telescopes outside of Earth’s atmosphere. To capture the image, the Webb telescope used its Mid-InfraRed Instrument, or MIRI, one of the observatory’s four powerful tools to investigate the cosmos, according to the release. IC 5332 is “notable for being almost perfectly face-on with respect to Earth, allowing us to admire the symmetrical sweep of its spiral arms,” according to a press release from the European Space Agency. The galaxy, named IC 5332, stretches about 66,000 light-years wide, making it about one-third the size of our home galaxy, the Milky Way.

#Dope nasa wallpaper full#

The “bones” of the galaxy, typically obscured from view by dust, are on full display.

A dazzling spiral galaxy located 29 million light-years from Earth appears in “unprecedented detail” in a new image released by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.