The James Webb Space Telescope captured an incredible image of the spiral galaxy NGC 628's center, which could reveal important information.
The most recent comes from Judy Schmidt (aka Geckzilla, SpaceGeck), an astrophotographer who processed an image of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 1365 taken by Webb. NGC 1365, also known as the Great Barred Spiral Galaxy, is a double-barred spiral galaxy with a long bar and a smaller barred structure located in the southern constellation of Fornax about 56 million light-years away.
NGC 1365, which is over 200,000 light-years in diameter and roughly twice the size of the Milky Way, is notable for the way its wide arms extend from its central bar to give it a Z-like appearance. JWST picked the galaxy for observations because of its iconic nature and how much of its interior structure is obscured by dust. Its second bar, in particular, is more visible in infrared images, and previous instruments (such as the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes) were limited in terms of what they could see.
According to astronomers, this bar is critical in the evolution of the galaxy, drawing gas and dust to the core, forming new stars, and feeding the supermassive black hole, which is about two million solar masses and rotates at close to the speed of light. This region is also thought to have formed as a result of a combination of dynamical instabilities in the region, possibly caused by stellar orbits, density waves, the overall rotation of the disc, and the possibility that the inner bar moved faster than the larger bar.
The image shows the most detailed view of the central barred region and the numerous smaller, wispier arms that extend from it. The glowing center illustrates the Super Massive Black Hole (the bright dot in the center) and a halo-shaped star-forming region, as well as illuminated dust surrounding it. Bright patches can also be found throughout the two larger arms, which resemble extended archipelagos rather than single structures.
According to Alyssa A. Goodman, a Harvard astronomy professor, the large empty round spaces in this image are likely to be giant cavities caused by many supernovae going off together, and they "trigger" more star formation (red blobs) around the cavity edges.
Astronomers are particularly interested in NGC 1365 and other barred spiral galaxies as a result of new observations indicating that the Milky Way may also be a barred spiral galaxy.
Webb will study parts of the Universe that are largely inaccessible in visible light astronomy, such as molecular clouds (star-forming regions), circumstellar discs that give rise to planets, and active galaxies' cores. This includes the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which has been difficult to observe due to the cosmic dust that has accumulated between it and Earth. These observations will provide information about the supermassive black hole (Sagittarius A*), the stars that orbit it, and the densely packed "galactic bulge" that surrounds it.
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