The beautiful NASA photo was snapped by the space agency’s soon-to-be-retired Spitzer Space Telescope. The NASA instrument photographs distant cosmic objects in different infrared wavelengths to bring out their hidden beauty. In this case, NASA’s Spitzer photographed a pair of galaxies some 23 million light-years away from Earth – 135,208,380,000,000,000,000 miles. The two galaxies, Messier 51 and NGC 5194/5195, are locked in an eternal tug of war, resulting in the nickname of Whirlpool Galaxy.
The Whirlpool Galaxy is shown here in four different infrared and visible wavelengths as well as four different colours.
NASA said: “Unlike Andy Warhol’s famous silkscreen grids of repeating images rendered in different colours, the varying hues of this galaxy represent how its appearance changes in different wavelengths of light – from visible light to the infrared light seen by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope.
“The Whirlpool galaxy, also known as Messier 51 and NGC 5194/5195, is actually a pair of galaxies that are tugging and distorting each other through their mutual gravitational attraction.
“Located approximately 23 million light-years away, it resides in the constellation Canes Venatici.”
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On the left, the Whirlpool Galaxy is shown in visible light – a real-life representation of the what the galaxy looks like to the naked eye.
With a powerful enough telescope, you should be able to see the galaxy in these colours.
If you had a powerful enough telescope pointed at Messier 51, this is what the galaxy would like to you.
The photo was snapped by a 6.8ft (2.1m) telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, US.
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The second image combines visible and infrared light, giving the galaxy a blue-red hue.
The darker streaks throughout the galaxy’s spiral arms are “dark threads” of cosmic dust, which obscure the stars lurking behind them.
The remaining two photos in violet and blue-green, are taken in different infrared wavelengths.
NASA said: “In the middle-right panel (c), we see three wavelengths of infrared light: 3.6 microns (shown in blue), 4.5 microns (green) and 8 microns (red).
“The blended light from the billions of stars in the Whirlpool is brightest at the shorter infrared wavelengths and is seen here as a blue haze.
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“The individual blue dots across the image are mostly nearby stars and a few distant galaxies.
“Red features show us dust composed mostly of carbon that is lit up by the stars in the galaxy.”
After an incredible 16 years of space exploration, NASA has announced the Spitzer Space Telescope will be retired.
The telescope launched into space in August 2003 but due to budget concerns and other missions being prioritised over Spitzer, NASA has decided to pull the plug on the telescope on January 30, 2020.
