Bulge fossil fragment Terzan 5 (Webb and Hubble image annotated)

This image of bulge fossil fragment Terzan 5 was captured by the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes. Webb’s data are from its NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and Hubble’s from its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).

The image shows a scale bar, compass arrows, and colour key for reference.

The scale bar is labeled in light-years along the bottom, which is the distance that light travels in one Earth-year. (It takes two years for light to travel a distance equal to the length of the scale bar.) One light-year is equal to about 5.88 trillion miles or 9.46 trillion kilometers.

The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped relative to direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above).

This image shows visible and near-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colours. The colour key shows which NIRCam and ACS filters were used when collecting the light. The colour of each filter name is the visible-light colour used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter.

This image was created with Hubble data from proposal: 12933 (F. R. Ferraro) and Webb data from proposal: 5502 (F. R. Ferraro). 

[Image description: A dramatically crowded starfield that looks like a just-shaken snow globe. The black background of space is covered by thousands of tiny white, orange, and blue points of light, which are stars. The stars are most concentrated in the centre, forming a roughly circular orb. At the bottom left are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The east arrow points toward 12 o’clock. The north arrow points toward 3 o’clock. At the bottom right is a scale bar labeled 2 light-years. The length of the scale bar is about one seventh of the total image. Below the image is a colour key showing which Hubble ACS/WFC and Webb NIRCam filters were used to create the image, and which visible-light colour is assigned to each filter. Hubble ACS filters, from left to right: F606W is blue and F814W is teal. Webb NIRCam filters: F115W is orange, F200W is red.]