ESAWebb Images

The Cigar Galaxy: M82 (Webb NIRCam image)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0200

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope recently observed edge-on starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82), nicknamed the Cigar Galaxy. Webb’s near-infrared-light view is a snapshot in time, revealing a scene that has been evolving over a couple hundred million years. In near-infrared light, astronomers can see the galaxy’s distended disc structure and millions of individual stars (approximately 16.5 million) for the first time.

Webb’s imaging survey of the galaxy is helping astronomers investigate the formation history of M82 and will also shed light on the current processes occurring within the starburst galaxy.

[Image description: Edge-on spiral starburst galaxy Messier 82 as imaged by Webb. Hourglass-shaped red-orange plumes of material are shooting outward from above and below a bright blue-white, disc-shaped centre. Messier 82 is set against the black background of space, which has many distant galaxies that appear as small white and orange spirals, ovals, and points of light. Toward the right of Messier 82 is a blue-white star with eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of Webb.]

The Cigar Galaxy: M82 (Hubble and Webb)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0200

Edge-on spiral galaxy Messier 82 (M82) has been an object of study by many observatories over the years, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and most recently the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.

This side-by-side comparison shows the same region of M82 as seen by Hubble (left) and Webb (right). Hubble’s visible-light view is limited because of the amount of dust within M82, which shrouds the galaxy’s details. Bright, bluish light radiating from the centre is due to star formation. A notable thick lane of dust, black in the centre and red around the edges, diagonally stretches across the scene. Thinner strands and clumps of reddish dust cover the majority of the view.

With its ability to observe the near-infrared Universe, Webb can pierce through the dusty environment of M82 and reveal what was once hidden to astronomers. With Webb, millions of individual stars within M82’s heart (seen here as luminous blue-white granules) are resolved in unprecedented clarity. Red-orange clumps, most noticeable toward the right, are small dust grains.

[Image description: A side-by-side comparison of a portion of starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82) as seen by Hubble (left) and Webb (right). The left image is labeled “Hubble” and the right image is labeled “Webb.” Hubble’s visible-light view at left shows bright, bluish light radiating from the centre and a thick lane of dust, black in the centre and red around the edges, diagonally stretching across the scene. Thinner strands and clumps of reddish dust cover the majority of the view. Webb’s infrared-light view at right shows a dense area of stars, depicted as luminous blue-white grains, against the black background of space. Toward the right side is clumpy red material, which is most visible toward the top right corner.]

The Cigar Galaxy: M82 (Webb and Hubble image)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0200

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s recently observed edge-on starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82), nicknamed the Cigar Galaxy. Webb’s near-infrared-light view is a snapshot in time, revealing a scene that has been evolving over a couple hundred million years. In near-infrared light, astronomers can see the galaxy’s distended disc structure and millions of individual stars — approximately 16.5 million — for the first time.

Depicted as luminous blue granules, these stars are only a small portion of the total amount astronomers think reside in a galaxy like M82. The extreme star formation occurring within M82, which will eventually cause star formation to cease in the future, is causing bipolar plumes of material to be ejected above and below the galaxy’s disc.

Yellow tendrils of material closest to the galaxy’s disc represent ionised gas, and the orange material farther away depicts small dust grains. These grains are called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and are helpful in tracing material in the space between the galaxy’s stars — also known as the interstellar medium.

Webb’s detailed observation of the galaxy, specifically of the main plane of the disc, is aiding astronomers as they seek to uncover the formation history of M82. The telescope data will also help scientists understand the current processes occurring within the starburst galaxy.

[Image description: Composite image of edge-on spiral starburst galaxy Messier 82 as observed by Webb and Hubble. Hourglass-shaped plumes of gas are shooting outward from above and below a bright blue-white, disc-shaped centre. The plumes are yellow near the galaxy’s bright centre, denoting areas of ionised hydrogen gas as observed by Hubble, and gradually become redder as you move farther away. Messier 82 is set against the black background of space, which has many distant galaxies that appear as small white and orange spirals, ovals, and points of light. Toward the right of Messier 82 is a blue-white star with eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of Webb.]

The Cigar Galaxy: M82 (Webb and Hubble image, annotated)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0200

Annotated image of the starburst galaxy Messier 82 captured by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s ACS/WFC instruments, with compass arrows, a scale bar, and colour key for reference.

The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped relative to direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above).

The scale bar is labeled in light-years.

This image shows invisible near-infrared and visible-light wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colours. The colour key shows which NIRCam and ACS/WFC filters were used when collecting the light. The colour of each filter name is the visible light colour used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter.

[Image description: Annotated image of starburst galaxy Messier 82 captured by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument, with compass arrows, a scale bar, and colour key for reference. Hourglass-shaped red-orange plumes of material are shooting outward from above and below a bright blue-white, disc-shaped centre. Messier 82 is set against the black background of space, which has many distant galaxies that appear as small white and orange spirals, ovals, and points of light. Toward the right of Messier 82 is a blue-white star with eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of Webb. Below the image is a colour key showing which of Webb’s NIRCam and Hubble’s ACS/WFC filters were used to create the image and which visible-light colour is assigned to each filter. From left to right, NIRCam filters are: F115W is blue; F200W is light blue; F335M is orange, and F444W is red. ACS/WFC filter F658N is yellow.]

M82 (Webb NIRCam image)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0200

Webb’s imaging survey of the galaxy is helping astronomers investigate the formation history of M82 and will also shed light on the current processes occurring within the starburst galaxy.

You can learn more about this image here.

Messier 82 (Hubble 2006 image)

Tue, 23 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0200

This mosaic image of the magnificent starburst galaxy, Messier 82 (M82) was shared in April 2006 for the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope's 16th anniversary. It showcases the galaxy's webs of shredded clouds and flame-like plumes of glowing hydrogen blasting out from its central regions. You can learn more about this image here.

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS (NIRSpec IFU)

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 17:00:00 +0200

Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument can map specific chemical and molecular signatures, as seen here in its three images of comet 3I/ATLAS, each highlighting a part of the comet’s contents.

Researchers use NIRSpec’s Integral Field Unit, which provides a spectrum of every image pixel, to dive deeper into the details of cosmic objects than they can with the telescope’s imaging instruments alone. This is crucial for a rare object like 3I/ATLAS, which is only the third comet from outside the Solar System ever studied, and the first to be observed by an instrument capable of capturing as much detail as NIRSpec. With NIRSpec’s data, researchers can build a picture of where the comet may have come from and what its home system was like and then compare that to familiar conditions in the Solar System.

[Image description: Comparison of three telescope images side by side. They are roughly spherical but pixelated, with more intense colour saturation in the centre. From left to right: smallest sphere is blue and labeled H2O, orange is larger and labeled CO2, and red is largest and labeled CO. A scale bar at the lower left is labeled 1300 km/1 arcsecond and is about one fourth of each of the three images. A compass at the lower right shows north pointing up to 12 o’clock, east pointing left to 9 o’clock, and a fainter arrow labeled to Sun pointing down to 8 o’clock.]

3I/ATLAS compared to Solar System comets

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 17:00:00 +0200

Measurements of specific element varieties by Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument show how different the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS is from comets originating in our own Solar System. Researchers used NIRSpec to measure carbon-13, which contains an extra neutron, relative to the more common carbon-12. They also measured the abundance of heavy hydrogen, which is a hydrogen atom with an added neutron.

Webb’s NIRSpec found a surprisingly large amount of heavy hydrogen, with a low abundance of carbon-13, indicating that 3I/ATLAS came from a place very different from our own Solar System. Researchers say early analysis of these results indicates that 3I/ATLAS was ejected from its origin system billions of years ago.

[Image description: Infographic showing the differences in measured ratios of heavy carbon and heavy hydrogen between Solar System comets and interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS. The top portion of the infographic has headline Heavy Carbon, plus a horizontal scale in increments of 50 ranging from zero to 250 measuring the ratio of Carbon-12 to Carbon-13. Three Solar System comets appear just below 100 on the scale, while 3I/ATLAS appears above 150 for carbon monoxide and about 170 for carbon dioxide. The bottom portion of the infographic has the headline Heavy Hydrogen, and a horizontal scale ranging from 10 to the negative fifth power on the left to approximately 10 to the negative first power on the right, though 10 to the first is not labeled. This scale is labeled Ratio of Heavy Hydrogen Measured in Water. Eleven Solar System comets appear on the graph, all falling to the right of 10 to the negative fourth power. Comet 3I/ATLAS appears at 10 to the negative second power.]

Bulge fossil fragment Terzan 5 (Webb and Hubble image annotated)

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:15:00 +0200

This image of bulge fossil fragment Terzan 5 was captured by the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes. Webb’s data are from its NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and Hubble’s from its Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS).

The image shows a scale bar, compass arrows, and colour key for reference.

The scale bar is labeled in light-years along the bottom, which is the distance that light travels in one Earth-year. (It takes two years for light to travel a distance equal to the length of the scale bar.) One light-year is equal to about 5.88 trillion miles or 9.46 trillion kilometers.

This image shows visible and near-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colours. The colour key shows which NIRCam and ACS filters were used when collecting the light. The colour of each filter name is the visible-light colour used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter.

This image was created with Hubble data from proposal: 12933 (F. R. Ferraro) and Webb data from proposal: 5502 (F. R. Ferraro).

[Image description: A dramatically crowded starfield that looks like a just-shaken snow globe. The black background of space is covered by thousands of tiny white, orange, and blue points of light, which are stars. The stars are most concentrated in the centre, forming a roughly circular orb. At the bottom left are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The east arrow points toward 12 o’clock. The north arrow points toward 3 o’clock. At the bottom right is a scale bar labeled 2 light-years. The length of the scale bar is about one seventh of the total image. Below the image is a colour key showing which Hubble ACS/WFC and Webb NIRCam filters were used to create the image, and which visible-light colour is assigned to each filter. Hubble ACS filters, from left to right: F606W is blue and F814W is teal. Webb NIRCam filters: F115W is orange, F200W is red.]

Bulge fossil fragment Terzan 5 (Webb and Hubble image)

Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:15:00 +0200

Terzan 5 is a stellar system orbiting within the Milky Way galaxy’s bulge, which is an incredibly bright, crowded central region of the galaxy. Not only are stars within the bulge tightly packed together — every bit of this region is laced with thick clouds of gas and dust.

The James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes joined forces to study Terzan 5. Astronomers already knew that this star cluster was unusual in that it contained two stellar populations of very different ages. New research found strong evidence for two more stellar populations, one that formed 3.8 billion years ago and another only 2.5 billion years ago. The research team also was able to determine the ages of the previously known stellar populations with unprecedented precision, finding that they formed 12.5 billion and 4.7 billion years ago.

This finding proved that Terzan 5 is not a globular star cluster, as originally classified. Instead, Terzan 5 belongs to a new category, known as a bulge fossil fragment — a self-contained, self-enriching stellar system with multiple star populations of different ages and with different iron abundances.

Terzan 5 is 22,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. It contains about 2 million times the Sun's mass packed into a stellar system only a few tens of light-years across, making it one of the most massive and densely populated globular-cluster-like systems in the Milky Way.

This image was created with Hubble data from proposal: 12933 (F. R. Ferraro) and Webb data from proposal: 5502 (F. R. Ferraro).

[Image description: A dramatically crowded starfield that looks like a just-shaken snow globe. The black background of space, which is clearer at the edges, is covered by thousands of tiny white, orange, and blue points of light, which are stars. The stars are most concentrated in the centre, forming a roughly circular orb, and sparser at the edges of the image. Several larger orange stars, particularly those largest near the edges of the frame, have prominent diffraction spikes.]

GLIMPSE-17775 in Abell S1063 (NIRCam image annotated)

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0200

The little red dot that would come to be known as GLIMPSE-17775 was fortunately included in the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s field of view as it was observing galaxy cluster Abell S1063 for a different scientific purpose. GLIMPSE-17775 is located behind the galaxy cluster and has a cosmological redshift of 3.5, meaning it existed about 1.8 billion years after the Big Bang.

Since galaxy clusters like Abell S1063 are some of the most massive objects in the Universe, light emitted by objects farther away can become distorted as it reaches the telescope. This effect is known as gravitational lensing. The combination of Webb’s 30 hours of observing time and gravitational lensing enabled scientists to obtain the deepest spectrum to date of a little red dot. The result: the strongest evidence to date of a hot, dense gas cocoon known as a “black hole star.”

[Image description: A field of galaxies against the black background of space. In the centre is a bright-white elliptical galaxy that is the core of the Abell S1063 galaxy cluster. Around the core are short, curved red lines, which are distant background galaxies magnified and warped by gravitational lensing. A couple of foreground stars appear large and bright with Webb’s signature eight-point diffraction spike pattern. Toward the very bottom, slightly off center toward the right, is a small red dot that is highlighted by an orange square outline. A larger orange square in the top right corner shows the object in more detail. The object, labeled “GLIMPSE-17775” looks like a fuzzy red dot with a yellow core.]

GLIMPSE-17775 spectrum

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0200

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s spectroscopic data on little red dot GLIMPSE-17775 contains more than 40 spectral lines. The spectrum contains multiple independent indicators that support the theory that this little red dot is a black hole star: a rapidly accreting, or growing, black hole enveloped in a hot, dense gas cocoon. This layered, shell-like environment is reprocessing the light emitted from near the black hole and producing the features seen in the spectrum.

For example, scientists found that many of the spectral lines, such as hydrogen, oxygen, and helium, do not match a simple, rotating gas cloud model. The best fit model includes a broadening effect known as electron scattering, a telltale sign that a dense, layered gas cocoon is enshrouding the source.

[Image description: A spectrum graphic showing the amount of light blocked on the y-axis versus wavelength of light, in microns. The bottom of the y-axis is labeled “fainter,” and the top is labeled “brighter.” The x-axis starts with 2.80 microns at left and continues in increments of five, ending with 3.05 microns at right. A key at top left has a white line labeled “Data” and a small blue square labeled “Model of light scattered through hot dense gas.” The white data line is stepped with a large bell-like curve that peaks at 2.95 microns. It is labeled “hydrogen” and highlighted by a semi-transparent purple. The data also forms small peaks highlighted with different colors: around 2.84 microns, oxygen, green; 3.0 microns, helium, red; and 3.02 microns, sulfur, orange. The blue filling, representing the model, approximately fills the bell-like curve that marks hydrogen. A smaller peak of blue also approximately fills the data’s peak of helium.]

Abell S1063 galaxy cluster

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:00:00 +0200

The little red dot that would come to be known as GLIMPSE-17775 was fortunately included in the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s field of view as it was observing this galaxy cluster Abell S1063 for a different scientific purpose.

Webb unveils young stars across every stage of formation

Fri, 05 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0200

For this NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month we return to the constellation Orion (the Hunter), a location familiar to Webb. This area of the sky is replete with star-forming clouds that make up a complex hundreds of light-years across. We find ourselves in the giant molecular cloud Orion A, of which the familiar Orion Nebula (also known as M42) is just a part; Webb has taken both close-up and wide-angle looks at M42 before.

The target of these observations, however, requires us to look behind the Orion Nebula. Behind the stars, gas and dust of M42 is a long, massive filament of cold gas and dust called (somewhat confusingly) the Orion Molecular Clouds, which is divided into four parts, OMC-1 through OMC-4. OMC-1 sits immediately behind M42, to the north are OMC-2 and OMC-3, and OMC-4 lies to the south.

This image shows just a small, northern portion of OMC-2, located 1280 light-years from Earth and a little north of the Orion Nebula. Every stage of star formation — from the youngest stellar embryos, to protoplanetary discs, to newly-minted pre-main sequence stars — is contained within just this scene, which stretches 150 light-years across. The intense star-forming activity has produced an impressive display of billowing outflows and sparkling stars atop swirling layers of gas and dark, obscuring clouds.

Molecular clouds such as OMC-2 are vast clumps of gas much more dense than the rest of interstellar space. This density allows complex molecules to form, protected from the radiation given off by other stars, and it means that gravity can cause the cloud to collapse and form stars. The earliest stage of this process is a protostar - a growing star that is being fed gas from the surrounding cloud through a spinning disc of gas. As gas falls onto the protostar, it heats up, powering the glow of the protostar. The immense amount of energy acquired during this process is unleashed in fierce jets of gas from the poles of the star, frequently seen as twin glowing outflows that mark the location of a protostar.

The abundance of protostars forming here in OMC-2 has created many spectacular outflows, large and small. Jets emitted from the young stars form high-speed shockwaves that sweep through the dense material around them; where the shockwaves are impacting the gas, it heats up and glows brightly, creating sharp ridges. Zoom in to observe the fine details in these shockwaves, as well as spot the smaller outflows from younger protostars. See if you can spot the location of hidden protostars, still so deeply obscured by their dusty cradles that they can’t be seen directly, by following outflows! Compare these very young protostars to the most evolved examples: the large, bright stars which have cleared away the clouds that surrounded them and now illuminate OMC-2.

Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) was used to capture this view of OMC-2. The thick gas and dust in and around the Orion Nebula blocks any light coming from OMC-2 at visible wavelengths, and the clouds in OMC-2 itself obscure the protostars that astronomers really want to find. Only in the infrared do we see these protostars begin to shine out from their cocoons of dust. In many places, the cold dust is so dense that it absorbs all or almost all light, creating dark globules. Orange, brown and some of the red colours mark warmer dust that absorbs some light and emits some of its own. The yellow to green gradient is largely emission from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), while light from stars and protostars scattered by dust grains is seen here primarily as blue and cyan hazes. Gas heated by the outflows creates the detailed, glowing red ridges.

The data was collected in observing programme #5804, which aims to study the star formation in OMC-2 and its immediate neighbour, OMC-3. Since these molecular clouds are so near to Earth, they are excellent laboratories to learn about the earliest stages of stellar evolution. Astronomers will use the data from Webb to investigate how the many outflows affect star formation in the two regions, how the ultraviolet emission from the young stars impacts chemistry in the circumstellar discs which one day will form planets, and how gas and dust accretes onto the tens of protostars in the region.

[Image Description: An area inside a star-forming molecular cloud. The background is covered with layers of gas and dust in blue, green and yellowish colours. Thicker clumps of cold dust, dark brown to black, block out light completely. Stars lie among and atop the clouds, from small orange ones to large white or blue ones. Waves and streams of glowing whitish gas are created by jets from protostars colliding with the surrounding material.]

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Little Red Dot Abell2744-QSO1 (NIRCam Image, annotated)

Wed, 27 May 2026 17:00:00 +0200

This is an image from NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) on Webb that shows Abell2744-QSO1, magnified and triply imaged by galaxy cluster Abell 2744.

Abell2744-QSO1 (QSO1) is a prototypical Little Red Dot, one of the first of hundreds of tiny glowing flecks of infrared light that Webb has found speckling the early Universe. QSO1 is roughly 1,300 light-years across and with a cosmological redshift (z) of 7, its light dates back to just 700 million years after the Big Bang, when the Universe was only 5% of its current age.

QSO1 is ideal for study because it is gravitationally lensed, both magnified and triply imaged by Abell 2744, the intervening mega-cluster of galaxies that warps its surrounding space-time.

Detailed study of the brightest of the three lensed images, QSO1A (upper right), shows that the object consists of a central supermassive black hole 50 million times the mass of the Sun, surrounded by a cloud of hydrogen and helium gas with very small amounts of heavier elements like oxygen. Unlike supermassive black holes in nearby galaxies, which make up only a tiny fraction of their host galaxy’s total mass, QSO1’s black hole contains twice as much mass as the galactic material surrounding it.

[Image description: Image with compass arrows, scale bar, and colour key. A deep field image showing objects of different size, colour, and shape. Three tiny, red circular objects are called out with small white boxes, and enlarged in pullouts labeled from top to bottom: QSO1A, QSO1B, and QSO1C. In the bottom left corner of the image are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The east arrow points toward 10 o’clock. The north arrow points toward 1 o’clock. At the bottom right corner of the image is a scale bar labeled 15 arcseconds. The image width is about 5.5 times the length of the scale bar. Below the image is a colour key showing which NIRCam filters were used to create the image and which visible light colour is assigned to each filter. From left to right: F115W (blue), F150W (blue), F200W (green), F277W (green), F356W (red), F444W (red).]

Little Red Dot Abell2744-QSO1a (NIRCam image with NIRSpec IFU velocity map)

Wed, 27 May 2026 17:00:00 +0200

An image detail from Webb’s NIRCam shows the Little Red Dot Abell2744-QSO1, gravitationally lensed by Abell 2744, an enormous mega-cluster of galaxies also known as Pandora’s Cluster.

Pulled out to the right is a map showing the speed that gas is moving toward or away from the telescope (rotational velocity) in different parts of QSO1. The map was made with data collected using NIRSpec’s integral field unit (IFU), a combination of camera and spectrograph. The IFU gathers an image along with 900 spectra from a square patch of sky 3 arcseconds by 3 arcseconds, creating maps showing differences in brightness of thousands of wavelengths between 0.6-micron and 5.3-micron light across the object. The gas velocity is calculated based on Doppler shift: the colours are shifted slightly toward shorter (bluer) wavelengths where material is moving toward us, and longer (redder) wavelengths where it is moving away.

The Webb data shows that the glowing gas has Keplerian rotation: it is orbiting a central point in the same way that planets orbit a star. This means that most of the mass of QSO1 must reside in a single point in the centre, i.e., a black hole. Because the velocity of the orbiting gas follows very simple laws of gravity, the data can then be used to calculate the mass of the black hole: It appears to be 50 million solar masses, or 50 million times the mass of our Sun. This is about two-thirds of the entire mass of QSO1.

[Image description: Left: Space telescope image shows small, red, circular object outlined with white square. Scale bar in bottom left corner labeled 1 arcsecond shows that image is about 4 arcseconds across and object is about 0.4 arcseconds across. Right: Enlarged view of Little Red Dot overlaid with dumbbell-shaped array of pixels ranging in colour from blue to orange. Dumbbell shape is vertical, and pixels are oriented at 45 degrees. Below pixels is blue to orange scale bar showing that colour of each pixel is related to gas velocity in kilometres per second. Left side of scale bar grades from blue (labeled 20) to gray (labeled 0). Blue arrow pointing left from 0 to 20 beneath left (blue) side of scale bar is labeled toward. Orange arrow pointing right from 0 to 20 beneath the right (orange) side labeled away. Pixels on lower half of dumbbell shape are blue to gray.]

Little Red Dot Abell2744-QSO1 (NIRCam Image)

Wed, 27 May 2026 17:00:00 +0200

This is an image from NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) on Webb that shows Abell2744-QSO1, magnified and triply imaged by galaxy cluster Abell 2744.

QSO1 is ideal for study because it is gravitationally lensed, both magnified and triply imaged by Abell 2744, the intervening mega-cluster of galaxies that warps its surrounding space-time.

[Image description: Image showing hundreds of bright objects of different size, colour, and shape on the black background of space. Colours range from white to deep red. Shapes include elliptical, spiral, dot-like, dash-like, and arcuate.Three objects in the central part of the image are called out with small white boxes that contain images of the three objects. From top to bottom these are labeled QSO1A, QSO1B, and QSO1C. At the centre of each box is a tiny, circular red dot. QSO1A (top) is notably larger, brighter, and clearer than the other two. QSO1B, in the middle, is the smallest and fuzziest, and is somewhat washed out by the light of a larger white object next to it.]

Messier 77 (NIRCam)

Thu, 07 May 2026 10:00:00 +0200

This latest Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features Messier 77 (M77), a barred spiral galaxy famous and appreciated among astronomers for its combination of relative proximity and spectacular features to study. It is located 45 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (The Whale). This new image, from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), highlights its swirling spiral arms, the dust in its disc and its piercingly bright core like never before.

At the heart of M77 is a compact region filled with hot gas that handily outshines the rest of the galaxy put together, even overcoming the light-gathering capacity of Webb’s cameras. This is an active galactic nucleus (AGN), and it’s powered by M77’s central supermassive black hole, which is eight million times as massive as our Sun. Gas in the galaxy’s central regions is pulled by the strong gravity into a tight and rapid orbit around the black hole, where it crashes together and heats up, releasing tremendous amounts of radiation. The starburst pattern radiating from M77’s centre is diffraction spikes that are a feature of the telescope’s optics. They are most often seen from stars, but the bright and compact AGN creates some in this image too.

The bright AGN lies within a larger structure that is uniquely highlighted by Webb’s NIRCam. Since its discovery in 1780, M77 has been variously identified as a nebula (before the concept of separate galaxies beyond our own), a star cluster, and an ordinary spiral galaxy. But near-infrared images reveal a bar spanning from the inner end of one spiral arm to the other, a bar which doesn’t appear in visible-light images of the galaxy. Bars in galaxies channel vast amounts of star-forming material through a dense central region, and indeed M77 is an extremely prolific star-forming galaxy thanks to this bar, spawning tens of Suns worth of new stars every year!

Beyond the bar, M77’s spiral arms spin lazily out into the disc of the galaxy and beyond. The arms are the location of much of this new star birth, with dense clumps of gas collapsing to form tightly-packed clusters of stars. NIRCam pinpoints the light from these stars along the spiral arms, as well as capturing the glow that suffuses the galaxy from the billions of stars in its disc. Particularly along the southern spiral arm, NIRCam also traces infrared emission at slightly longer wavelengths — shown here in red colours — from complex molecules including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

The data used to create this image are from an observing programme (#3707) that surveyed massive, nearby, star-forming galaxies to create a rich dataset useful for many scientific investigations. As can be seen here, the stunning resolution of Webb’s instruments reveals star clusters and rich reservoirs of gas, which can be used to explore the cycle of star formation, life and death in these and other galaxies.

[Image Description: A spiral galaxy shown in near-infrared light. Six long, thin rays of light emit from the centre, which are diffraction spikes created by the telescope’s optics. A glowing bar spans across the centre. A glittering orange ring of stars and dust surrounds the bar; at each side, the ring splits off into a spiral arm that winds outwards, traced by dark red dust and more glowing orange spots. The galaxy’s disc is a pale glow.]

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A beacon of light in swirls of dust

Thu, 07 May 2026 10:00:00 +0200

This latest Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features Messier 77 (M77), a barred spiral galaxy famous and appreciated among astronomers for its combination of relative proximity and spectacular features to study. It is located 45 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (The Whale). This new image from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) highlights its swirling spiral arms, the dust in its disc and its piercingly bright core like never before.

The bright orange lines appearing to radiate out from the centre of M77 are not actually a feature of the galaxy: they are a type of distortion that arises from the optical design of the telescope. Called diffraction spikes, they are created because the intense light from the unresolved AGN is bent (“diffracted”) very slightly at the edges of Webb’s hexagonal mirror panels and around one of the struts that hold up its secondary mirror. This distinctive six-plus-two-pointed pattern is the same for any image taken by Webb. For diffraction spikes to appear, the light source has to be very bright and very concentrated, so they’re most often seen on stars. But in some galaxies, as here, the nucleus is bright and compact enough to make diffraction spikes appear as well.

M77 is not just known for its easily visible AGN, but also as a prolific star-forming galaxy. The near-infrared image of M77 reveals a bar spanning across the central region, which doesn’t appear in visible-light images of the galaxy. The bar is enclosed by a bright ring, called a starburst ring, formed by the inner ends of M77’s two spiral arms. Starburst regions in galaxies are typified by extremely high star-formation rates. This ring is more than 6 000 light-years across and displays intense and widespread starbursts, visible in this image by the densely concentrated orange bubbles all around the ring. Since M77 is relatively close to Earth, this starburst ring is a very well-studied example of the phenomenon.

As an active spiral galaxy, M77’s disc is filled with gas and dust which is both a product of and fuel for future star formation. Webb’s MIRI fills out our view of the galaxy with the glow of interstellar dust grains emitted at longer wavelengths, shown here in blue. The dust forms a huge vortex of smoky, swirling filaments with cavities in between. The glowing orange bubbles carved out by newly formed star clusters are also prominently visible out along the galaxy’s arms.

Beyond Webb’s quite focused view, M77’s arms join into a faint extended ring of hydrogen gas thousands of light-years wide, where yet more star formation is taking place. Vast, tenuous filaments of hydrogen gas stretch across this ring and out into intergalactic space, forming an outermost layer around the galaxy. For the tentacle-like appearance of these filaments, M77 is also named the Squid Galaxy.

[Image Description: A spiral galaxy shown in mid-infrared light. The image is dominated by an extremely bright glow from the galaxy’s nucleus. Six large and two smaller rays of light emit from the centre, which are diffraction spikes created by the telescope’s optics. The galaxy’s spiral arms are visible by two lines of glowing orange bubbles which whirl out into the disc. Swirling blue clouds of dust make up the rest of the galaxy.]

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Messier 77 (MIRI + NIRCam)

Thu, 07 May 2026 10:00:00 +0200

This latest Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope features Messier 77 (M77), a barred spiral galaxy famous and appreciated among astronomers for its combination of relative proximity and spectacular features to study. It is located 45 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (The Whale). This new image from Webb highlights its swirling spiral arms, the dust in its disc and its piercingly bright core like never before.

M77 is not just known for its easily visible AGN, but also as a prolific star-forming galaxy. Data in this image from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) reveals a bar spanning across the central region, which doesn’t appear in visible-light images of the galaxy. The bar is enclosed by a bright ring, called a starburst ring, formed by the inner ends of M77’s two spiral arms. Starburst regions in galaxies are typified by extremely high star-formation rates. This ring is more than 6 000 light-years across and displays intense and widespread starbursts, visible in this image by the densely concentrated orange bubbles all around the ring. Since M77 is relatively close to Earth, this starburst ring is a very well-studied example of the phenomenon.

Beyond the ring and bar, M77’s spiral arms spin lazily out into the disc of the galaxy and beyond. The arms are the location of much of this new star birth, with dense clumps of gas collapsing to form tightly-packed clusters of stars. NIRCam pinpoints the light from these stars along the spiral arms, as well as capturing the glow that suffuses the galaxy from the billions of stars in its disc. Particularly along the southern spiral arm, NIRCam also traces infrared emission at slightly longer wavelengths from complex molecules including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

As an active spiral galaxy, M77’s disc is filled with gas and dust which is both a product of and fuel for future star formation. NIRCam picks out the glitter of countless stars spread across the disc, and Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) fills out the view with the glow of interstellar dust grains emitted at longer wavelengths, shown here in dark red. The dust forms a huge vortex of smoky, swirling filaments with cavities in between.

[Image Description: A spiral galaxy shown in infrared light. Six long and two smaller rays of light emit from the centre, which are diffraction spikes created by the telescope’s optics. A glowing bar spans across the centre. A glittering ring of stars and dust surrounds the bar; at each side, the ring splits off into a spiral arm that winds outwards. Faint, dark red dust clouds swirl throughout the rest of the disc, backed by a pale glow from all the galaxy’s stars.]

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Star-forming regions in M51

Wed, 06 May 2026 12:00:00 +0200

Astronomers have long known that understanding how star clusters come to be is key to unlocking other secrets of galactic evolution. Stars form in clusters, created when clouds of gas collapse under gravity. As more and more stars are born in a collapsing cloud, strong stellar winds, harsh ultraviolet radiation and the supernova explosions of massive stars eventually disperse the cloud, and their light can bear down on other star-forming regions in the galaxy. This process is called stellar feedback, and it means that most of the gas in a galaxy never gets used for star formation. Researching how star clusters develop can answer questions about star formation at a galactic scale.

Now, the state of the art has been further developed with both Hubble and Webb working together to provide a broad-spectrum view of thousands of young star clusters. An international team of astronomers has pored over images of four nearby galaxies from the FEAST observing programme (#1783), trying to solve this mystery. Their results show that it is the most massive star clusters that clear away their gaseous shroud the fastest, and begin lighting their galaxy the earliest.

The team identified nearly 9000 star clusters in the four galaxies in different evolutionary stages: young clusters just starting to emerge from their natal clouds of gas, clusters that had partially dispersed the gas (both from Webb images), and fully unobstructed clusters visible in optical light (found in Hubble images). With Webb’s ability to peer inside the gas clouds, they were able to then estimate the mass and age of each cluster from its light spectrum.

This image shows a section of one of the spiral arms of Messier 51 (M51), one of the four galaxies studied in this work, as seen by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). The thick clumps of star-forming gas are shown here in red and orange, representing infrared light emitted by ionised gas, dust grains, and complex molecules such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Within these gas complexes, each tens or hundreds of light years across, Webb reveals the dense, extremely bright clusters of massive stars that have just recently formed. The countless stars strewn across the arm of the galaxy, many of which would be invisible to our eyes behind layers of dust, are also laid bare in infrared light.

[Image description: A large, long portion of one of the spiral arms in galaxy M51. Red-orange, clumpy filaments of gas and dust that stretch in a chain from left to right comprise the arm. Shining cyan bubbles light up parts of the gas clouds from within, and gaps expose bright star clusters in these bubbles as glowing white dots. The whole image is dotted with small stars. A faint blue glow around the arm colours the otherwise dark background.]

Star-forming region in M51 (close-up)

Wed, 06 May 2026 12:00:00 +0200

This image shows a star-forming complex in Messier 51 (M51), measuring almost 800 light-years across. M51 is located about 27 million light-years away from Earth. The thick cloud of star-forming gas, in which clumps collapsed to form each of the individual star clusters, is shown here in red and orange colours that represent infrared light emitted by ionised gas, dust grains, and complex molecules such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

Many of the bright dots that can be seen within the clouds are star clusters. The massive young stars within cast powerful radiation on the gas clouds that surround them, creating the cyan illumination shown here. Eventually, the combination of radiation, stellar wind and the supernova explosions of the most massive of these stars will disperse the gas clouds, putting an end to the star formation in this part of M51.

[Image description: A close-in view of a star-forming nebula. At this resolution, it is slightly blurry. It is made of dense clouds of gas, red on the outside and orange in towards the center. Nestled in the cloud is a collection of bright blue-white dots, which are star clusters. They light up the inner gas clouds in cyan. Many stars from the galaxy are scattered across the view. A little of the dark background appears in the top right.]

Nearby star-forming FEAST galaxies

Wed, 06 May 2026 12:00:00 +0200

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope together with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope have looked deeply at thousands of young star clusters in four nearby galaxies, studying clusters at different stages of evolution. Their findings show that more massive star clusters emerge more quickly from the clouds they are born in, clearing away gas and filling the galaxy with ultraviolet light. The result gives us a more detailed understanding of star formation in galaxies, as well as how and where planets can form.

This image shows the four galaxies studied in this research, each of which has previously been the subject of an ESA/Webb Picture of the Month: Messier 51 (top left), Messier 83 (top right), NGC 4449 (bottom left), and NGC 628 (bottom right).

[Image description: A collage featuring four images of spiral galaxies observed by Webb. Blue colours, especially in the centre of the galaxies, are near-infrared light that show the location of bright stars. Orange and yellow show ionised gas and red colours come from complex molecules and dust grains; these are longer mid-infrared wavelengths. They trace out the spiral arms of each galaxy as a network of filaments with cavities in between.]

Location of star-forming region in M51

Wed, 06 May 2026 12:00:00 +0200

This image locates a star-forming complex in one of the spiral arms of Messier 51 (M51), measuring almost 800 light-years across. M51 is located about 27 million light-years away from Earth. The thick cloud of star-forming gas, in which clumps collapsed to form each of the individual star clusters, is shown here in red and orange colours that represent infrared light emitted by ionised gas, dust grains, and complex molecules such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

[Image description: A graphic showing three images of spiral galaxy M51. The top image spans the spiral arms and the galactic centre. A large upright portion of the spiral arm on the left is highlighted in a box, which expands to the image on the left, showing the area in more colour and greater detail. This image has a scale bar labelled “1000 light-years”. A square indicates a cloud of gas, shown enlarged on the right with a scale bar “100 light-years”.]

Exoplanet 29 Cygni b (NIRCam image)

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:00:00 +0200

Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to directly image 29 Cygni b, which weighs 15 times Jupiter. They found evidence for heavy chemical elements like carbon and oxygen, which strongly suggests it formed like a planet by accretion within a protoplanetary disc, and not like a star through fragmentation.

Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) was used in its coronagraphic mode, in which a wedge (indicated by the blue box) is used to block the light of the host star (labeled A and marked with a star symbol) to reveal the planet. This image combines light from three filters between 4 and 5 microns. The planet is brightest in the blue filter, then green, then red, so it appears as an off-white dot in the colour composite. If carbon dioxide weren’t present, the planet would appear noticeably redder.

In this image, the colour blue is assigned to 4.1 micron light, green to 4.3 micron light, and red to 4.6 micron light.