Webb’s infrared view of a face-on spiral galaxy
Click for original image.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have produced a false-color infrared view of M74, a face-on spiral galaxy located 32 million light years away.
The montage above shows that image to the right, with a Hubble optical image to the left. In the center both images are combined.
The addition of crystal-clear Webb observations at longer wavelengths will allow astronomers to pinpoint star-forming regions in the galaxies, accurately measure the masses and ages of star clusters, and gain insights into the nature of the small grains of dust drifting in interstellar space.
Because infrared can see through cold dust, it provides a much sharper view of this galaxy’s central regions.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Click for original image.
Using the James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have produced a false-color infrared view of M74, a face-on spiral galaxy located 32 million light years away.
The montage above shows that image to the right, with a Hubble optical image to the left. In the center both images are combined.
The addition of crystal-clear Webb observations at longer wavelengths will allow astronomers to pinpoint star-forming regions in the galaxies, accurately measure the masses and ages of star clusters, and gain insights into the nature of the small grains of dust drifting in interstellar space.
Because infrared can see through cold dust, it provides a much sharper view of this galaxy’s central regions.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
How do we know that all these great new images from JWST and other new telescopes aren’t just something that some NASA employee created in Photoshop? Is there any evidence they provide for the raw data and how it is tied to the images? I hear terms like image enhancement, combining data from multiple telescopes, etc.
Is there any third-party audit of the process for converting raw data into images?
Kevin Smith: Excellent question. The bottom line is that Webb looks only in infrared wavelengths, so all its images are always false color and enhanced. The raw data however is supposed to be made available for any to review, though it might not be accessibly immediately or easily by the general public. If you want it however I am sure you could obtain it.
The real question is this: What would be the motive here for the data to be falsified? In the specific images of galaxies that I have posted, there is no motive. The data itself is ground-breaking. The only motive is to make it understandable and interpretable by the scientists.
If you read my website regularly, you will know that I am no naive commentator of modern science. If for a second I believed this data was faked, I would say so immediately.
What would be the motive? $$ More government funding for their multi-billion dollar over budget telescopes.
Why do we need these telescopes? Who cares how or where stars form?
If Elon Musk wants to go to the Moon or Mars, let him pay for it with his own money.
I’m not saying that if we didn’t fund these boondoggles, we wouldn’t have starving children in the world, but it is still a waste of taxpayer money with no real tangible benefit to anyone except for the scientists that are part of the taxpayer funded programs.
Kevin Smith observed:
“I’m not saying that if we didn’t fund these boondoggles, we wouldn’t have starving children in the world, but it is still a waste of taxpayer money with no real tangible benefit to anyone except for the scientists that are part of the taxpayer funded programs.”
Perhaps ‘waste’ isn’t the word, as that implies expenditure with no useful gain. At the very least, the public gets pretty pictures, so that’s something. And a fair bet some children will wonder how we can build better telescopes, or develop the tech to actually get there.
True, government-funding of pure science efforts is a relatively recent development. This used to be done by wealthy patrons, usually with an eye to making a profit, or at the least gaining social stature from their beneficiaries efforts.
Societies and individuals alike must look far down the road to get an idea of what to do right now. I’d much rather pay for ‘boondoggles’ like Webb, than all of the Government segregation programs.
Kevin:
“… it is still a waste of taxpayer money with no real tangible benefit…”
Subjective. I taught astronomy for 25 years. Made my early living doing so. No one could eat any of it. They all wanted to consume it. A waste of their time and their money?
Life, Liberty & the pursuit of Happiness.
Those are tangible benefits, are they not?
Somewhere out there is the Jupiter 2 s till looking to find Alpha Cenrari
Kevin Smith asked: “Why do we need these telescopes? Who cares how or where stars form?”
Astronomy, physics, and science in general help answer some of man’s basic questions: Who are we? Where did we come from? Why are we here? And: Where are we going? Science even helps with the questions: What do we want? What’s for lunch? And: tennis, anyone?
In asking and answering these questions, we have discovered how the world around us works and found ways to make it work in our favor. Agriculture, manufacturing, and transportation are a few of the benefits we have gained from seeking the answers. We grow food to keep billions of people alive, but a few thousand years ago there were only a few million people supported by the Earth. We discovered the causes and cures for diseases. We can predict weather with great accuracy, and we can declare heat emergencies in states that have failed to keep up with the electrical demands it has placed on its population (governance is not science but allows for the use or misuse of what science teaches us — California’s government misuses it). Our lives are much more prosperous, due to science.
Thanks to astronomy, we now know that we are not the center of the universe (although I still claim that honor, despite what others say), that God did not make a perfect universe, that the Milky Way is made of stars rather than spilt milk, and that the universe is much more mysterious than we had believed or could imagine, up until a century or so ago.
Our lives are greatly enhanced by knowing the universe better.
On the other hand, most government programs cause more harm than good, even to the point of paying people to not work — to not be productive — putting a drag on the prosperity of all of us. Government thinks that it does good — the greater good — to “give a man a fish,” but that man comes back tomorrow for another fish and often demands better or more than yesterday’s gift, further reducing the prosperity of all of us. As we have seen over the past two years, more people join him in expecting others to do all the fishing and handing out their hard-earned bounty, even further degrading the prosperity of all of us.
Some greater good.
If only those sponges would do their own fishing, the rest of us would have more time to relax, more time to find better ways to fish, more time to produce other beneficial goods and services, and more time to study the universe to better understand it and ourselves, all of which make us more prosperous.