James Webb Telescope clicks pictures of a galaxy with 800 billion Suns
04 Jun, 2025
Credit: Nasa
NASA's Webb Telescope captured a near-infrared image of the Sombrero galaxy, highlighting its bright central bulge while revealing less of the dust disk due to infrared light's ability to pass through dust.
Observing the galaxy in visible (Hubble), near-IR, and mid-IR (Webb) helps astronomers study how stars, dust, and gas interact and evolve over time.
The mid-infrared image shows the galaxy's dust glowing, while in near-infrared, stars shine through more clearly, making the dust less pronounced.
Located 30 million light-years away, the Sombrero galaxy is seen nearly edge-on and has a mass equivalent to about 800 billion Suns.
Variations in the chemical makeup of its 2,000+ globular clusters suggest the galaxy may have merged with another galaxy in the past.
A noticeable warp in the inner disk, visible due to our slightly tilted viewing angle, supports the idea of a past galactic merger.
Webb's powerful resolution reveals red giant stars and a colorful array of distant background galaxies, offering more clues about stellar evolution and cosmic structure.
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