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Capturing All That Glitters in Galaxies with NASA’s Webb

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January 19, 2022 10:00AM (EST)Release ID: 2022-007
Face-on barred spiral galaxy NGC 3351. The galaxy has a bright white core, shaped like an egg, that has a bright pink, irregular S shape over it. Going outward, there’s a gap between the galaxy’s core and its spiral arms, but the region is lit and has irregular dark brown dust lanes throughout it. The next region initially appears as a bright circle that extends almost to all edges of the frame. Here, bright star forming regions are highlighted in magenta. There’s a speckled blue background, giving the magenta a pinker hue. This circle is actually composed of spiral arms that are wound clockwise, their ends made up of larger red blobs all along the very edges of the frame.

Summary

An international research team will survey the stars, star clusters, and dust that lie within 19 nearby galaxies.

To understand galaxies, you have to understand how stars form. Over 100 researchers from around the world have collaborated to bring together observations of nearby spiral galaxies taken with the world’s most powerful radio, visible, and ultraviolet telescopes – and will soon add a full suite of high-resolution infrared images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. With this groundbreaking data set, astronomers will be able to study stars as they start to form within dark, dusty gas clouds, untangle when those infant stars blow away that gas and dust, and identify more mature stars that are puffing off layers of gas and dust – all for the first time in a diverse set of spiral galaxies.

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Full Article

Spirals are some of the most captivating shapes in the universe. They appear in intricate seashells, carefully constructed spider webs, and even in the curls of ocean waves. Spirals on cosmic scales – as seen in galaxies – are even more arresting, not only for their beauty, but also for the overwhelming amount of information they contain. How do stars and star clusters form? Until recently, a complete answer used to lie out of reach, blocked by gas and dust. Within the first year of operations, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will help researchers complete a more detailed sketch ...

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News releases highlighting the discoveries of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope are produced for NASA by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, under NASA Contract NAS5-03127. News release content is developed by the News Team in STScI’s Office of Public Outreach.

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