The space telescope from NASA, James Webb, never ceases to amaze with its unpublished space shots.
Since the publication of his first images on July 12, where he showed the sharpest photographs of space, today, he points his lens towards the galaxy named: Cart-wheel, revealing new details regarding the formation of the star and the black hole at its center.
According to NASA, the Cartwheel galaxy is a unique sighting located 500 million light years away in the constellation Sculptor, and its appearance, similar to the wheel of a car, is the result of an intense event: a high speed collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy.
This explains that collisions of galactic proportions cause a cascade of different, smaller, collisions between the galaxies involved. And the Cartwheel was no exception.
The collision markedly affected the structure of the galaxy, which shows 2 rings: a bright inner ring and a surrounding colorful ring. These two circles expand outward from the center of the collision, like ripples in a lake following a stone is thrown at it. And for that, astronomers categorize it as “Ring Galaxy”; a less common structure than the spiral galaxies of our Milky Way.
It’s time to reinvent the wheel.
Here is a new image of the Cartwheel galaxy, captured by the telescope @NASAWebb. Webb not only provides a snapshot of the current state of the galaxy, but also a glimpse into its past and future: https://t.co/8shuzxUjqI pic.twitter.com/J7o005RYEJ
— NASA in Spanish (@NASA_es) August 2, 2022
”This image is a composite view that combines data from two of Webb’s instruments: NIRCam and MIRI. While Webb’s NIRCam reveals never-before-seen young stars, MIRI reveals regions rich in hydrocarbons and chemical compounds, as well as silicate dust, similar to Earth’s dust. Instagram.
For now, thanks to Webb’s observations, it became known that the Auto Wheel eIt is in a very transitory stage. That is, the galaxy, which was a normal galaxy like the Milky Way before its collision, will continue to transform. And now, as Webb gives us a look at the current state of The Wheel, he also gives us previously unseen information from what happened to this galaxy in the past and how it will evolve in the future.
