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Neptune Wide Field (NIRCam)
2022-09-21
- Classification
- Photograph
- Museum
- Wikimedia Commons
- Credit line
- https://webbtelescope.org/contents/media/images/2022/046/01GCCVQ72QM3D8CM2MRFGZ94HB
- Rights
- Public domain, as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
About this work
In this image by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), a smattering of hundreds of background galaxies, varying in size and shape, appear alongside the Neptune system.
Neptune, when compared to Earth, is a big planet. If Earth were the size of a nickel, Neptune would be as big as a basketball. In most portraits, the outer planets of our solar system reflect this otherworldly size. However, Neptune appears relatively small in a wide-field view of the vast universe.
Towards the bottom left of this image, a barred spiral galaxy comes into focus. Scientists say this particular galaxy, previously unexplored in detail, may be about a billion light-years away. Spiral galaxies like this are typically dominated by young stars that appear blueish in these wavelengths.
NIRCam was built by a team at the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Technology Center.
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