The James Webb Space Telescope accidentally photographed a galaxy seen from the side

She is in a picture of the South Ring Nebula

On July 10, we told you about the James Webb Space Telescope, which was about to unveil never-before-seen photos of distant stars and galaxies. It is now done and the famous images reserve some surprises. ScienceAlert reports in particular that an important detail of one of the shots went unnoticed at first glance: one can observe a galaxy seen from the side.

Located in the upper left corner of the Images of the South Ring Nebula, the galaxy may appear to be a simple trail of light. Karl Gordon, an astronomer at NASA, even explains that he had bet that it was simply a part of the nebula: "I lost my bet, because after looking more carefully at the NIRCam and MIRI [mid-infrared] images, it is very clearly a galaxy seen from the side," he acknowledges.

This perspective, revealed by the infrared gaze of the telescope that allows to see through the cosmic dust, is unprecedented. And it should make it possible to study the distribution of stars in the galaxy.

James-Webb scientists have not yet provided more explanations for this famous galaxy. On the other hand, the image on which it seems to have been embedded is not just any image: it is the death of the nebula of the southern ring. Also called the Lyre Nebula, it is a huge cloud of gas dust located about 2,000 light-years away.

In its center, there are two stars. The first is a white dwarf, the collapsed core of a dead star with a mass that was to reach up to eight times that of the sun. The second star, the brightest, is at an earlier stage of its evolution and will also explode one day, in its own nebula.

These shots are revolutionary in themselves. But the discovery of this particular view of a galaxy confirms that the telescope still has a lot to offer us.