New image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows thousands upon thousands of stars in a galaxy 17 million light years away
ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team
- The James Webb Space Telescope snapped a new image of a galaxy 17 million light-years away.
- Thousands upon thousands of stars are visible, many of which are concentrated in the galaxy's heart.
- JWST is peering into the hearts of many galaxies to help scientists better understand star formation.
With the power of the James Webb Space Telescope, we can peer into the mysterious hearts of galaxies. And that's exactly what you're seeing here, in this new image from Webb of the galaxy NGC 5068.
NGC 5068 is located about 17 million light-years from Earth. For perspective, the Milky Way's neighborhood of galaxies called the Local Group, is 5 million light-years away. So, this galaxy is beyond what we might consider close.
Each individual dot of white light you can see is a star, per Mashable. NASA said there are thousands upon thousands of stars in this image. And many of them are hanging out at the galaxy's center, which you can see in the upper left as a bright bar of white light.
ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team
This region appears so bright because that's where most of the stars are concentrated. That's also where all the action is.
James Webb peers into the hearts of many galaxies to uncover their secrets
Most galaxies have an ultra-bright center due to warm dust that's heated by massive bursts of star formation, according to the Harvard Smithsonian. And it's this star formation that astronomers are interested in studying more with the help of JWST.
In fact, NGC 5068 is just one in a series of other galaxies Webb is observing for a project to help us better understand star formation. Webb has also taken images of the spiral galaxy IC 5332:
ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST and PHANGS-HST Teams
And the heart of galaxy M74, aka the "Phantom Galaxy":
ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team./J. Schmidt
The James Webb Space Telescope has the advantage of seeing in the infrared.
Infrared wavelengths are too long for the human eye to detect. But they're especially important for studying in space because they allow JWST to peer past obstructive visual light that would otherwise block our ability to see into the hearts of galaxies and their bustling environments of star formation.
"By observing the formation of stars in nearby galaxies, astronomers hope to kick-start major scientific advances with some of the first available data from Webb," NASA said.
Watch a video of NGC 5068 below: