Photo: Dazzling Cartwheel Galaxy Captured by NASA's James Webb Telescope Leaves Netizens in Awe

A photo of the Cartwheel Galaxy, located around 500 million light years away, was captured by NASA's new James Webb Space Telescope, and is leaving netizens mesmerized.

On Tuesday, the US space agency NASA took to social media to unveil the dazzling Cartwheel galaxy and said in the statement that it was "presumably a normal galaxy like the Milky Way before its collision."

The photo posted on the Twitter account of the NASA Webb Telescope shows two rings of the Cartwheel Galaxy — a bright inner ring and a colorful outer one that ripples outward from the middle of the collision.

From our perspective, the outer ring has been expanding from the center of the collision for around 440 million years. When it expands and hits the surrounding gas, stars form, appearing as blue dots in the red swirls of dust.

The space agency said in the statement that the pictures of the rare Cartwheel Galaxy throw light on how the galaxy has evolved over billions of years, and interesting details have emerged about star formation and the black hole at the center of it.

The Webb telescope also captured two other galaxies to the left of the cartwheel galaxy.

The NASA experts have revealed that the Cartwheel Galaxy will continue to change in shape and structure in future. Its final form still remains a mystery.

"However, this snapshot provides perspective on what happened to the galaxy in the past and what it will do in the future," the European Space Agency said in a separate statement.

Netizens, meanwhile, are in awe looking at the magnificent Cartwheel Galaxy, and posting their reactions.

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched on Christmas Day 2021 and reached its orbit in February this year.

Webb's infrared camera, which can see through cosmic dust, has captured several images of galaxies more than 100 billion light years away.