This image of a spiral galaxy, captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope,
will be on a new United States Postal Service stamp scheduled to be released to the
public Jan. 21. Danny Dale, a professor of physics and astronomy and associate dean
of the University of Wyoming College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, assisted
with the planning and execution of the image taken. (NASA/James Webb Space Telescope
Photo)
Unless one is a scientist or a teacher of the sciences, it would be understandable
if a person may not be familiar with spiral galaxies.
Danny Dale, a professor of physics and astronomy and associate dean of the University
of Wyoming College of Engineering and Physical Sciences, recently had a hand in bringing
spiral galaxies to the public in a unique way: through a new United States Postal
Service (USPS) stamp that will be unveiled later this month.
The USPS will celebrate the continued exploration of deep space with an extremely
high-definition image of a spiral galaxy 32 million light years from Earth -- an image
that will be affixed to a new postage stamp to be released Tuesday, Jan. 21, according
to a recent USPS news release.
“I assisted with the planning and execution of the image taken,” Dale says. “We used
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) to take this multicolor image at infrared
wavelengths.”
Dale says the science team he is a part of, in concert with the JWST, is focused on
gathering photo images and spectra of nearby spiral galaxies. The image helps researchers
update their models of star formation and allows them to better understand the origins
of the universe, according to the USPS release.
“Galaxies are where stars and planets are born and live their lives. Our Milky Way
galaxy alone has hundreds of billions of stars, including our own sun,” Dale says.
“Galaxies are the building blocks of the universe. Spiral galaxies are beautiful structures
with multiple spiral arms that wind around the galaxy centers. Spiral galaxies are
the most common form of galaxies.”
Greg Breeding, an art director for the USPS, designed the stamp with an image from
NASA, the European Space Agency, the Canadian Space Agency, the Space Telescope Science
Institute, Oxford University and the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby
GalaxieS program, a large project that includes observations from several space- and
ground-based telescopes of many galaxies to help researchers study all phases of the
star formation cycle.
Upon favorable review by the Postal Regulatory Commission, the stamp will be denominated
at the new priority mail flat envelope rate, according to the USPS release.
“I hope young people find it inspiring and that it motivates them to pursue a STEM
(science, technology, engineering and mathematics) career if that's what excites them,”
Dale says.
