But even that distance is fairly close in cosmic terms. It is about 40 million light-years away from the earth while the other four are about 290 million light-years away. The leftmost galaxy is well in the foreground in comparison with the other four. It also shows a black hole in the Quintet at a detail never seen before.Įven though they are called a quintet, only four of the galaxies are actually close together and caught in a “cosmic dance”. The image shows the dramatic impact of huge shockwaves as one of the galaxies smashes through the cluster. It covers over 150 million pixels and is constructed from 1,000 separate image files. The fourth image is an enormous mosaic of Stephan’s Quintet and the largest image taken by Webb to date. What looks like steam rising from the “mountains” is actually hot ionised gas and hot dust streaming away from the nebula because of radiation.

Some pillars tower about the glowing wall of gas, resisting the star’s radiation. This young star’s intense ultraviolet radiation is slowly eroding it away. The cavernous area in the image was carved from the nebula by the intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from extremely hot young stars located in the centre of this “bubble,” above the area shown in the image.

Actually, it is the edge of the giant gaseous cavity within the region of the nebula and some of the tallest “peaks” in the nebula are around 7 light-years high. The image resembles craggy mountains on a moonlit evening. Captured in infrared for the first time by Webb, the new image shows previously invisible areas of star birth. The last and final image released by NASA shows a star-forming region in the Carina Nebula called NGC 3324, and its “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars.

Nasa picture of the day milky way