The two flaming rings had never been identified so clearly. On Tuesday, NASA unveiled a spectacular photo of the Cartwheel galaxy, located some 500 million light-years from our Milky Way. If the image is so sharp and can distinguish dust and two other smaller galaxies, it is thanks to the infrared capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope, launched into space seven months ago.
This shot gives a glimpse of the current state of the galaxy, but “it also gives us an idea of what happened to her in the past, and how she will evolve in the future“, underlines NASA in its press release. For the moment, astronomers believe that the Cartwheel was originally a spiral galaxy, before collide with another galaxy, which caused the creation of two circles. The largest, outside, has been expanding for 440 million years.