December 02, 2024 - 7:58PM The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a surprising new view of a long-studied galactic neighbour, the Sombrero galaxy, revealing a perspective that looks quite different from the wide-brimmed Mexican hat for which it was named. Taken with the space observatory's Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI, the image showcases the galaxy's smooth inner disk, rather than the glowing core that usually shines in visible light images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope. Webb's view makes the "crown" of the sombrero invisible, changing the appearance of the galaxy to resemble a bull's-eye. Meanwhile, distant galaxies glimmer in the background of the image. The galaxy — also known as Messier 104, or M104 — is about 30 million light-years from Earth in the Virgo constellation. French astronomer and comet hunter Pierre Méchain discovered it in 1781. Méchain named the galactic find for his colleague Charles Messier, who famously catalogued star clusters and nebulae. Topics: Attribution: NASA/JPL-Caltech via CNN Newsource Data from a retired NASA mission has revealed evidence of an underground reservoir of water deep beneath the surface of Mars, according to new research. A team of scientists estimates that there may be enough water, trapped in tiny cracks and pores of rock in the middle of the Martian crust, to fill oceans on the planet's surface. The groundwater would likely cover the entirety of Mars to a depth of 1.6km, the study found. The data came from NASA's InSight lander (artist's impression pictured), which used a seismometer to study the interior of Mars from 2018 to 2022. Future astronauts exploring Mars would encounter a whole host of challenges if they tried to access the water, because it's located between 11.5km and 20km beneath the surface, according to the study newly published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. But the finding uncovers new details about the geological history of Mars — and suggests a new place to search for life on the red planet if the water could ever be accessed. "Understanding the Martian water cycle is critical for understanding the evolution of the climate, surface and interior," said lead study author Vashan Wright, assistant professor and geophysicist at the University of California, San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography, in a statement. "A useful starting point is to identify where water is and how much is there." 8 of 233