You’ve seen Hubble’s images, now observe the power of the James Webb Space Telescope and its latest image of IC 5332. This dazzling spiral galaxy is located over 29 million light-years from Earth and has a diameter of approximately 66,000 light-years, making it about 1/3 smaller than the Milky Way.
What really stands out about IC 5332 is it being nearly perfectly face-on with respect to Earth, enabling astronomers to admire the symmetrical sweep of its spiral arms. Webb used the MIRI instrument to capture this image, as it’s the only instrument sensitive to the mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum. This means that it operates in an environment only 7°C warmer than absolute zero. MIRI can only operate in this frigid environment due to its highly specialized detectors, and it has a dedicated active cooling system to ensure that its detectors are always kept in this state.
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This extravagantly detailed mid-infrared image is juxtaposed here with a beautiful ultraviolet and visible-light image of the same galaxy, created using data collected by Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). Some differences are immediately obvious. 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. This difference is due to the presence of dusty regions in the galaxy,” said the ESA.
