Phantom Galaxy

A face-on spiral; Webb’s infrared view shows the filaments of gas and dust in its arms.

The picture hangs at that distance facing Earth, as large as it is on the sky; how deep the object is cannot be seen, so it is flat.

Taken by

James Webb Space Telescope

Picture spans

about 34,000 ly

From the Sun

32 million light-years

RA / Dec

24.17° / 15.78°

Credit

ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team. Acknowledgement: J. Schmidt

Messier 74 is a large spiral galaxy in the equatorial constellation Pisces. It is about 32 million light-years away from Earth. The galaxy contains two clearly defined spiral arms and is therefore used as an archetypal example of a grand design spiral galaxy. The galaxy's low surface brightness makes it the most difficult Messier object for amateur astronomers to observe.

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