Photo: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
The James Webb Space Telescope has had no shortage of dazzling images, from its first color photos to incredible images of auroras on Jupiter. On August 2, 2022, another snapshot of the universe was released—the spectacular Cartwheel Galaxy. With all of these incredible new views of just some of the countless celestial bodies outside our globe, it’s sometimes hard to put it all into perspective. How big are we? How far away are all of these galaxies, planets, and stars?
Thanks to the European Space Agency (ESA), we can get a little more perspective. The agency released a video taking viewers on an intergalactic journey to see how far away the Earth really is from the Cartwheel Galaxy. For 28 seconds, the traveler passes star after star until the rare ring galaxy is finally in view. It takes almost 30 more seconds for the galaxy to fill the frame, and once it does, it is truly a sight to behold.
While the video doesn’t necessarily feel like warp speed space travel you would see in science fiction, it does take you 500 million light-years away from our home in about a minute. Since light-years are a measure of how long it takes light to travel to Earth, this actually means it has taken you 500 million years in the past. This short video is providing a little bit of not only space travel, but time travel as well.
Scroll below to travel millions of light-years from home.
The European Space Agency (ESA) released a video taking viewers on an intergalactic journey to the Cartwheel Galaxy, which is 500 million light-years from Earth.
European Space Agency (ESA): Website
James Webb Space Telescope: Website
h/t: [PetaPixel]
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