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The James Webb Space Telescope has captured scintillating images of 19 spiral galaxies – and the millions of stars that inhabit them – in unprecedented detail never before seen by astronomers.
Webb’s unique ability to observe the universe in different wavelengths of infrared light, such as the near-infrared and mid-infrared, shows the stars, gas and dust within the intricate structure of each galaxy.
Astronomers believe that about 60% All galaxies are spiral galaxies, and our solar system resides in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. Webb’s observations can help astronomers better understand star formation and the evolution of spiral galaxies like ours.
Viewed from the front, each galaxy in the new images has star-laden spiral arms. The center of each galaxy presents clusters of old or supermassive black holes.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), PHANGS team
The James Webb Space Telescope captured images of 19 spiral galaxies in near- and mid-infrared light.
The observations were made as part of the PHANGS, or the High angular resolution physics in nearby galaxies, project. More than 100 astronomers from around the world are participating in the program, which also analyzes data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the MUSE instrument on the European Space Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array in Chile.
Data from different telescopes allow astronomers to make observations at different wavelengths of visible, ultraviolet and radio light. Adding Webb’s infrared expertise can help address some of the observational gaps.
“The new Webb images are extraordinary,” Janice Lee, PHANGS senior member and project scientist for new missions and strategic initiatives at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, said in a statement. “They are mind-blowing even to researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades. “The bubbles and filaments are resolved to the smallest scales ever observed and tell a story about the star formation cycle.”
Astronomers used Webb’s near-infrared camera to observe millions of stars, seen in bright blue, grouped in clusters and also scattered across the arms of the 19 galaxies. Meanwhile, Webb’s mid-infrared instrument focuses attention on the bright dust surrounding stars, as well as still-forming red stars enveloped in the same gas and dust that helps star growth.
“This is where we can find the newest and most massive stars in galaxies,” Erik Rosolowsky, PHANGS senior member and professor of physics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, said in a statement.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), PHANGS team
This image shows observations of the galaxy NGC 4254 with the Webb (top left) and Hubble (bottom right) telescopes.
The spiral arms are virtually incandescent with orange and red gas in Webb’s images. The images will be used to help astronomers determine the distribution of gas and dust in spiral galaxies, as well as how galaxies nourish and stop star formation.
“These structures tend to follow the same pattern in certain parts of galaxies,” Rosolowsky said. “We think of them as waves, and their spacing tells us a lot about how a galaxy distributes its gas and dust.”
Webb also captured large spherical, shell-shaped voids between galactic gas and dust that were likely sculpted by star explosions.
“These holes may have been created by one or more stars that exploded, creating giant holes in the interstellar material,” Adam Leroy, PHANGS senior member and professor of astronomy at Ohio State University in Columbus, said in a statement.
Astronomers believe that galaxies form from the inside out. Star formation begins at the galactic center before spreading through the spiral arms. That means that a star’s distance from the heart of the galaxy is relative to its age, so younger stars are likely farther from the galactic core. Clusters of blue stars near the centers of each galaxy indicate older stars.
Meanwhile, some galaxies have pinkish-red spikes near their centers.
“That’s a clear sign that there may be an active supermassive black hole,” Eva Schinnerer, PHANGS senior member and scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany, said in a statement. “Or the star clusters toward the center are so bright that they have saturated that area of the image.”
According to Leroy, what scientists are most excited about is studying the enormous number of stars revealed by Webb’s new images.
“Stars can live billions or trillions of years,” Leroy said. “By accurately cataloging all types of stars, we can build a more reliable and holistic view of their life cycles.”