The appropriately named "Phantom Galaxy" glows eerily in a new image by Judy Schmidt based on James Webb Space Telescope data collected nearly a million miles away from our planet using the observatory's mid-infrared instrument (MIRI).
"I've been doing this for 10 years now, and [Webb] data is new, different, and exciting," Schmidt told Space.com. "Of course I'm going to make something with it."
The image highlights the dust lanes in the galaxy, which is more properly known as NGC 628 or Messier 74. Dubbed the "perfect spiral" by some astronomers because the galaxy is so symmetrical, the Phantom Galaxy is scientifically interesting because of the intermediate-mass black hole scientists believe is embedded at its heart.
The image highlights the dust lanes in the galaxy, which is more properly known as NGC 628 or Messier 74. Dubbed the "perfect spiral" by some astronomers because the galaxy is so symmetrical, the Phantom Galaxy is scientifically interesting because of the intermediate-mass black hole scientists believe is embedded at its heart.
The galaxy has been imaged professionally many times before, including by space observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). What makes Webb imagery stand apart from these past efforts is the mid-infrared range that highlights cosmic dust, along with the power of its unique 18-segment hexagonal mirror and deep-space location.
Webb observed M74 earlier this week. The data was also shared on Twitter(opens in new tab) (with different filtration) by Gabriel Brammer, an astronomer at the Cosmic Dawn Center in the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Denmark.
A selected of raw Webb imagery is made publicly available at this portal(opens in new tab) a few hours or days after observations, and amateur imagers and scientists are free to use the data as long as they credit the source when publishing.
The busy deep-space telescope released its first operational images on July 12 of deep-space objects, including a nebula and a view of very young galaxies. An infrared view of Jupiter, along with the gas giant's moons and rings, joined the iconic new images on July 14.
That week's work alone showcases Webb's flexibility in switching between faraway objects near the cosmic dawn — when stars began shining — and solar system objects much closer to its viewfinder.
As for the Phantom Galaxy, Schmidt used Photoshop and FITS Liberator for most of the work and said many of the concepts in her 2017 YouTube imaging tutorial(opens in new tab) will help with the more advanced software of today.
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