The NASA Chandra Observatory captured mesmerizing rings around a black hole, but when you combine its data with James Webb Space Telescope observations, you get these images with X-ray vision. More specifically, these images combine Webb’s first images in infrared with X-rays collected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. On the left (above), we see the Cartwheel galaxy, which got its unique shape from a collision with another smaller galaxy approximately 100 million years ago.
There’s also Stephen’s Quintet (bottom right), which merges the Webb image (red, orange, yellow, green, blue) with Chandra data (light blue), thus uncovering a shock wave that heats gas to tens of millions of degrees, as one of the galaxies passes through the others at speeds of around 2 million miles per hour. Plus, this composite also has infrared data from NASA’s now-defunct Spitzer Space Telescope (red, green, blue).
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NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory’s Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts,” according to the Chandra researchers.
