Phantom Galaxy (M74)

Phantom Galaxy (M74) — galaxy, explore its interactive 3D model in Cosmoscope.

Explore Phantom Galaxy (M74) in an interactive 3D view of space. See its catalogue position, distance and astronomical facts.

A faint, flawless two-armed spiral seen face-on — so symmetric it is the poster child for grand-design structure, its arms threaded with delicate filaments of dust.

Type

Face-on grand-design spiral

Distance

32 million light-years

Note

A favourite Webb portrait of spiral structure

Shown here

Representative stars, sampled from its measured light and labelled as such: no survey resolves its stars across the disc

Glow & dust

Old stars: a 3D bulge and disc fitted to WISE infrared; young stars from GALEX; Herschel dust; star-forming knots from WISE

Depth

Disc tilted 7° (measured); its thickness and depth are modelled

Explore Phantom Galaxy (M74) in 3D

Phantom Galaxy (M74) is placed in three-dimensional space using catalogue coordinates and an adopted astronomical distance. Rotate and zoom to explore the model. Stellar surfaces, gas structure and dust depths may be reconstructed or illustrative, as described in its facts; this is not live imagery from a telescope.