NGC7320

NGC 7320 is a spiral galaxy in Stephan's Quintet. However, it is not an actual member of the galaxy group, but a much closer line-of-sight galaxy at a distance of about 40 million light years, the same as the nearby NGC 7331.

Other galaxies of Stephan's Quintet are some 300 million light-years distant.

NGC 7320 has extensive H II regions, identified as bright blobs, where active star formation is occurring. The galaxy was imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope as part of Stephan's Quintet. This image was created from raw data downloaded from the JWST mid-infra red camera (MIRI) and processed in PixInsight.

The Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) has both a camera and a spectrograph that sees light in the mid-infrared region of the electromagnetic spectrum, with wavelengths that are longer than our eyes see. MIRI covers the wavelength range of 5 to 28 microns. Its sensitive detectors will allow it to see the redshifted light of distant galaxies and in this case, newly forming stars. The mid IR band allows us to 'see through' the dust clouds in the NGC7320 to see the under lying gas clouds with their associated star forming regions.

Image produced from raw data downloaded from MAST: the Barbara A. Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes

Original image by ESA/Hubble, alignment, integration and colour mapping by Arc Fortnight.