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Multiwavelength View of NGC 3351 (Hubble, VLT, ALMA Compass Image)

Annotated telescope image of a barred spiral galaxy with scale bar, compass arrows, and color key.

This composite image of NGC 3351, captured by the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), and the Very Large Telescope’s Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument, shows compass arrows and labels for reference.

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).

The scale bar is labeled in light-years, which is the distance that light travels in one Earth-year. (It takes 8,800 years for light to travel a distance equal to the length of the bar.) One light-year is equal to about 5.88 trillion miles or 9.46 trillion kilometers. The field of view shown in this image is approximately 28,000 light-years across. 

This image includes visible, ultraviolet, and radio light. All wavelengths have been translated into visible-light colors.

Read the full image caption.

  • Release Date
    January 19, 2022
  • Science Release
    Capturing All That Glitters in Galaxies with NASA’s Webb
    Read the release
  • Credit
    NASA, ESA, ESO-Chile, ALMA, NAOJ, NRAO

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Last Updated
Aug 28, 2025
Contact
Media

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Science Credit

NASA, ESA, ESO-Chile, ALMA, NAOJ, NRAO

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