The Phantom Galaxy: M74 | NASA's Webb Telescope & Chandra Observatory

The Phantom Galaxy: M74 | NASA's Webb Telescope & Chandra Observatory

Messier 74, nicknamed the Phantom Galaxy, is also a spiral galaxy—like our Milky Way—that we see face-on from our vantage point on Earth. It is about 32 million light-years away. Messier 74 is relatively dim, making it harder to spot with small telescopes than other galaxies in Charles Messier’s famous catalog from the 18th century. Webb outlines gas and dust in the infrared while Chandra data spotlights high-energy activity from stars at X-ray wavelengths. Hubble optical data showcases additional stars and dust along the dust lanes. (X-ray: purple; optical: orange, cyan, blue, infrared: green, yellow, red, magenta)

NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center manages the Chandra program. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Chandra X-ray Center controls science operations from Cambridge, Massachusetts, and flight operations from Burlington, Massachusetts.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb will solve mysteries in our solar system, look beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probe the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

Image Credits: 

X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO

Infrared: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Release Date: May 23, 2023

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