James Webb: Space telescope captures image of M51 whirlpool galaxy
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The M51 galaxy is located 27 million light years away from Earth
The European Space Agency has released a new image of a distant whirlpool galaxy, taken by the James Webb telescope.
Even though the galaxy - also know as M51 - has been pictured before, the world's largest and most powerful telescope has managed to snap the most detailed photo of it yet.
First discovered back in the 18th Century, M51 is located 27 million light years away from Earth in the constellation Canes Venatici.
Scientists say they hope the telescope's observations will help them better understand how new stars that are located outside of the Milky Way are formed.
What's happened?
The galaxy has been photographed many times before, but never in as much detail
The James Webb Space Telescope has already been changing our understanding of the universe with some incredible pictures since it's launch nearly two years ago.
The new picture of M51 is actually a combination of two separate images taken by different scientific instruments on the telescope.
Scientists think that M51 gets it's prominent big swirling arms, which resemble water circling a drain, partly thanks to the push and pull of gravity from its near neighbour, the dwarf galaxy NGC 5195.
Experts say by studying these processes, it will help them better understand how star formations within galaxies work, as well as discovering the time scales needed for planets.