Webb telescope sees a much hairier spiral galaxy than Hubble

Hubble gets a bad rap because it's inferior to the new space telescope. They're just designed to look at different things in the universe. There is a spiral galaxy 29 million light-years away.

At 66 million light-years across, the Sculptor constellation's IC 5332 is two-thirds the size of the Milky Way. The symmetrical sweeping arms of this galaxy make it easy to see from Earth.

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The Hubble telescope shows dark lanes between the dust and allows the spiral shape to pop against the blackness of space. NASA, the Canadian Space Agency, and the European Space Agency collaborated on the project and were able to detect a type of light that isn't visible to our eyes. The arms appear hairier and more threadlike.

The views are different because they look at different types of light. Scientists can learn a lot from looking at both images.

According to the European Space Agency, visible and ultraviolet light are more likely to be scattered by dust than by light from the sun. The Hubble image shows the dark parts of the galaxy that have not been able to receive the visible light. The dark regions in the image are not as dark as they used to be due to the mid-IR light passing through them.

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Left: Hubble view of the spiral galaxy IC 5332 Credit: ESA / NASA

Right: Webb view of the spiral galaxy IC 5332 Credit: ESA / NASA / CSA

The atmosphere absorbs much of the light and the heat from the atmosphere makes it difficult to detect it. Hubble doesn't get cold enough to pick up items like that.

Some of the oldest, faintest light in the universe will be observed by the astronomer. The telescope becameoperational in July of 2022.

It is located in deep space and uses a larger mirror.