The James Webb Space Telescope has captured new details of a galaxy, known as the Phantom, in a spectacular image showing its spiral shape released by the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA.

Launched into space in late 2021 and operational since July, James Webb has since revealed impressive images of Jupiter, nebulae and other distant galaxies, providing scientists with unprecedented amounts of data to analyze.

đź“· This new image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope shows M74, the Phantom Galaxy.

#Webb reveals delicate filaments of gas and dust in the spiral arms, and an unobscured view of the star cluster at the galaxy's center 👉 https://t.co/QegD5oO6Oz pic.twitter.com/zD985nDolU

— ESA (@esa) August 30, 2022

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The one released on Monday shows M74, or the Ghost Galaxy, with its bright blue core and flawless spiral, observed by the MIRI instrument.

This one studies the mid-infrared and is the fruit of a collaboration between Europeans and Americans.

"Webb's piercing gaze revealed fine filaments of gas and dust in the luminous spiral-shaped arms that extend from the center of this image", notes on its site the ESA, which specifies that the galaxy had already been observed by the mythical Hubble space telescope, launched in 1990 and still in operation.

A clearer view of the stars

The European agency, which co-developed the telescope with NASA, also notes that a "lack of gas" allows for a clearer view of stars in the center of the galaxy, located about 32 million years away. -light in the constellation Pisces.

The data collected "will allow astronomers to identify the regions of the galaxy where stars are forming, accurately measure the mass and age of star clusters and better understand the nature of the small dust grains that drift in the galaxy. 'interstellar space,' notes the ESA.

An engineering gem worth $10 billion, the James Webb Telescope conducts its observations 1.5 million kilometers from Earth.

It has, for the first time, detected the presence of CO2 in the atmosphere of an exoplanet, that is to say a planet outside our solar system, researchers announced last week.

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