Feel Small Now?

Yes, you are seeing double! A James Webb Space Telescope infrared image is at top left and visible light image from Hubble at bottom right. The resolution is the same—but each show off the gas, dust, and stars in various detail. Explainer: https://webbtelescope.pub/3WCQFSx

New Hubble Observations of Supernova 1987A Trace Shock Wave by NASA Goddard Photo and Video

M31, Andromeda

A busy patch of the Great Attractor by Hubble ESA

Dreamy space scapes by Nick Fritz on Instagram

The Dolphin Head Nebula, Sh2-308 // TRE

Gamma Cas & Ghost Nebula © Antoine Grelin

Prepare for visual overload! Today, 19 images of nearby face-on spiral galaxies by the James Webb Space Telescope were released. This marks the first time we’ve observed these galaxies in high-resolution near- and mid-infrared light. What do they uniquely show?

The galaxies’ clearly defined spiral arms are brimming with millions of stars. Their centers may be filled with old star clusters or active supermassive black holes. And Webb has shown us where stars that haven’t yet fully formed are still encased in the gas and dust that feed their growth, like bright red seeds.

Webb’s new images are part of a large, long-standing project, the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program, and will be added to images and data from the Hubble Space Telescope, the Very Large Telescope’s Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer, and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array. Now, astronomers around the world can examine these galaxies carefully in ultraviolet, visible, radio—and now near- and mid-infrared light.

Skip to the bottom of the page to look at each galaxy: https://webbtelescope.pub/3SxNSaU

ALT TEXT: Nineteen Webb images of face-on spiral galaxies are combined in a mosaic. Some appear within squares, and others horizontal or vertical rectangles. Many galaxies have blue hazes toward the centers, and all have orange spiral arms. Many have clear bar shaped-structures at their centers, but a few have spirals that begin at their cores. Some of the galaxies’ arms form clear spiral shapes, while others are more irregular. Some of the galaxies’ arms appear to rotate clockwise and others counterclockwise. Most galaxy cores are centered, but a few appear toward an image’s edge. Most galaxies appear to extend beyond the captured observations. The galaxies shown, listed in alphabetical order, are IC 5332, NGC 628, NGC 1087, NGC1300, NGC 1365, NGC 1385, NGC 1433, NGC 1512, NGC 1566, NGC 1672, NGC 2835, NGC 3351, NGC 3627, NGC 4254, NGC 4303, NGC 4321, NGC 4535, NGC 5068, and NGC 7496.

M42 Orion Nebula © Hubble

The Cartwheel Galaxy