Another IR View of a Spiral Galaxy

The filaments and hollow cavities in this JWST image of NGC 7496 are evidence of young stars releasing energy and clearing out the gas and dust of the interstellar medium surrounding them. In this image blue, green, and red were assigned to Webb’s MIRI data at 7.7, 10 and 11.3, and 21 microns (F770W, F1000W and F1130W, and F2100W, respectively).

Image Credits: NASA / ESA / CSA / J. Lee (NOIRLab)
Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI)

JWST’s IR View of NGC 1433

The James Webb Space Telescope is giving high resolution view into the fine structure of nearby galaxies and how the formation of young stars affects that structure. NGC 1433 is a barred spiral galaxy with a particularly bright core surrounded by a pair of star forming rings. In this image of NGC 1433, blue, green, and red were assigned to Webb’s MIRI data at 7.7, 10 and 11.3, and 21 µm.

Image Credits: NASA / ESA / CSA / J. Lee (NOIRLab).
Image processing: A. Pagan (STScI)

A Spiral Among Thousands

This video zooms into the field of stars and galaxies around the spiral galaxy LEDA 2046648. JWST’s NIRCam reveals smaller, more distant galaxies and bright stars in the field of view, demonstrating the telescope’s impressive resolution in infrared wavelengths. Calibration images such as this one were critical to verify the telescope’s capabilities as it was prepared for science operations.

Video Credit: ESA / NASA / CSA

NGC 7469

This JWST image is of NGC 7469, a luminous, face-on spiral galaxy approximately 90,000 light-years in diameter that’s around 220 million light-years away. It contgains an active galactic nucleus (AGN), an extremely bright central region dominated by the light emitted by dust and gas falling into the galaxy’s central black hole. The six-pointed spikes that seem to align with center of the galaxy are an imaging artifact known as a diffraction spike. Diffraction spikes are caused by light bending around the sharp edges int optical path of a telescope.

Credits—
Video: ESA / NASA / CSA
Music: Stellardrone – Twilight
Creative Commons License

Sharper Vision

This animation toggles between 2022 James Webb Space Telescope images and 2012 Hubble Space Telescope images of galaxy cluster MACS0647 and the very distant galaxy MACS0647-JD. JWST reveals far more detail than Hubble. Webb detects many more galaxies in the MACS0647 cluster. The three images of MACS0647-JD from JWST show two different features that are not the same color, with the larger area appearing redder and the smaller one appearing bluer. The Hubble images show only a single, pale, red, pixelated dot.

Video Credit: NASA / ESA / CSA /STScI

The Pillars of Creation: Hubble v. Webb

The Hubble Space Telescope’s 1995 image of the Pillars of Creation is one of the most well known astronomical pictures. It was updated in 2014 with a sharper, wider view taken in visible light; that’s shown on the left. The new, near-infrared-light view from the James Webb Space Telescope on the right cuts through more of the dust in this star-forming region. The  dusty pillars aren’t as opaque to infrared light, so many more new red stars can be seen.

Image Credits: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI

Webb Looks at Dimorphos

This image from JWST’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) shows Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet in the double-asteroid system of Didymos, about 4 hours after DART hit it. A tight, compact core and wispy plumes of material  streaming away are visible. The eight sharp points are Webb’s distinctive diffraction spikes, an artifact of the telescope’s structure.

Image Credits: NASA / ESA / CSA / Cristina Thomas (Northern Arizona University) / Ian Wong (NASA-GSFC) / Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

JWST Looks at the Tarantula Nebula

The clouds in this JWST NIRCam image stretch across 340 light-years of the Tarantula Nebula’s star-forming region. The image shows tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously hidden by dust. You can download the full resolution image here.

Credits: NASA / ESA / CSA / STScI / Webb ERO Production Team