After the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope struck the world in astonishment, astronomer Danny strikes the world in amazement: Gabriel Bremer of the Niels Bohr Institute in Copenhagen, who is not part of the telescope’s scientific team, processed three images taken by the telescope – creating a spectacular psychedelic tunnel.
Webb took the photos on Sunday, July 17, and they show the galaxy NGC 628, also known as the “Phantom Galaxy”. It is a spiral galaxy about 32 million light-years from Earth. The Phantom Galaxy has been photographed many times before, including by the Hubble Space Telescope, mainly to learn about its various arms – as it is very similar in shape to the Milky Way galaxy if we were to watch it “from above”.
Beyond the sheer beauty, image processing also has scientific value. The ability of the James Webb Space Telescope to shoot at high resolution in the infrared allows it to reveal the internal structure of the Phantom Galaxy.
Bremer downloaded the images to his computer and converted the various infrared wavelengths to red, green, and blue before attaching them to a single image. The galaxy’s dust clouds are composed mostly of polyvalent aromatic hydrocarbons, and these emit very little hue in Bremer’s computerized scan. While the green and blue blended to create a purple-pink hue – and the result is a tunnel reminiscent of the science fiction series “Dr. Ho”.
The team of researchers who ordered the observation from the James Webb Space Telescope has not yet had time to analyze the data obtained, but already from Bremer’s mesmerizing picture it appears that something is happening in the center of the Phantom Galaxy and has not yet been absorbed by astronomical observations. And other dust. How did a physical process lead to the separation or removal of the gases? Astrophysicists will investigate the mystery as part of the ongoing project Physics at High Angular Resolution in Nearby Galaxies, or PHANGS, which studies the relationship between stars and cold molecular gas in spiral galaxies.
In fact, anyone can download all the unprocessed images from the James Webb Space Telescope, play, process and explore them here.