The James Webb Space Telescope has produced an awe-inspiring image of the barred spiral galaxy NCG 5068, located a staggering 17 million light-years away. This galaxy, which shares a similar structure to our own Milky Way, features a prominent central bar that is a densely packed region of stars and dust. The image, captured using the telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), reveals a stunning display of dust and stars that form the galaxy’s bar, which appears as a prominent feature in the top left of the image.
A closer examination of the image reveals a delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters that thread across the galaxy, forming a cosmic highway of sorts. The bright tendrils of gas and stars belong to the galaxy’s central region, where star formation is typically more active. The galaxy’s central bar is a busy region of star formation, making it an ideal subject for study by astronomers.
The Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS project (PHANGS) is a comprehensive study into star formation in nearby galaxies. This project involves a collaboration between the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, and several ground-based telescopes, including the Very Large Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. As part of this project, the James Webb Space Telescope has collected images of 19 nearby star-forming galaxies, which can be combined with catalogs from Hubble of 10,000 star clusters, spectroscopic mapping of 20,000 star-forming emission nebulae, and observations of 12,000 dark, dense molecular clouds.
James Webb Space Telescope Captures Stunning Image of Barred Spiral Galaxy NCG 5068
The James Webb Space Telescope is particularly well-suited for studying star formation due to its ability to observe in the infrared wavelengths. This allows its instruments to see through clouds of dust, which would be opaque in visible light, and capture the intricate details of star formation. In the image, the dust forms a green web-like structure between the stars, which glow as points of light. The image also depicts bubbles of gas in red.
The James Webb Space Telescope’s observations of NCG 5068, and other nearby galaxies, provide astronomers with an unprecedented opportunity to piece together the minutiae of star formation. By combining these observations with data from other telescopes, astronomers can gain a deeper understanding of the complex processes involved in star formation and the role that this plays in shaping the evolution of galaxies.
