A new photo from the James Webb Telescope reveals the dusty filaments and bright star clusters of galaxy NGC 5068, located about 20 million light-years from Earth. It is of the barred spiral type, and this central structure was recorded in the new image.
Stars and planetary systems are born amidst clouds of gas and dust, which hide them from visible light telescopes. As Webb has instruments specially made for infrared observations, it was able to reveal what is inside the galaxy’s dust clouds.
The image above was produced by observations from James Webb’s MIRI instrument. It shows in detail the structure of the galaxy’s dust and glowing bubbles of gas, with newly formed star clusters.
In this photo, there are also some contrails left by asteroids — one is just below the galaxy bar, and another two appear in the lower left corner. They were recorded because, as Webb captured different images of the galaxy, the asteroids moved; thus, they ended up photographed in slightly different places.
This photo shows the galaxy’s large population of stars, which get denser along its central, bright bar. There are even reddish clouds, which glow thanks to gas ionized by the light of young stars there; besides them, there are also older stars, which form the center of the galaxy.
Finally, it is worth highlighting the H II regions, present in the photo. They are formed by clusters of hydrogen gas that form new stars.
Source: NASA
