韦伯影像: 棒旋星系NGC 1365

韦伯影像: 棒旋星系NGC 1365

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1365 from Webb
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Janice Lee (NOIRLab) – Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Explanation: A mere 56 million light-years distant toward the southern constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is an enormous barred spiral galaxy about 200,000 light-years in diameter. That’s twice the size of our own barred spiral Milky Way. This sharp image from the James Webb Space Telescope‘s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reveals stunning details of this magnificent spiral in infrared light. Webb’s field of view stretches about 60,000 light-years across NGC 1365, exploring the galaxy’s core and bright newborn star clusters. The intricate network of dusty filaments and bubbles is created by young stars along spiral arms winding from the galaxy’s central bar. Astronomers suspect the gravity field of NGC 1365’s bar plays a crucial role in the galaxy’s evolution, funneling gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the active galaxy’s central, supermassive black hole.

Tomorrow’s picture: the light, the dark, and the dusty

韦伯影像: 棒旋星系NGC 1365
影像提供: NASA, ESA, CSA, Janice Lee (NOIRLab) – 影像处理: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

说明: 在南天天炉座方向、距离仅有5千6百万光年的NGC 1365，是个直径约200,000光年的庞大棒旋星系，其大小是我们棒旋状银河系的2倍之多。这幅来自韦伯太空望远镜中红外相机（MIRI）的清晰影像，呈现了此宏伟螺旋星系在红外光波段令人惊叹的细微结构。这片韦伯望远镜视野，涵盖NGC 1365约60,000光年的区域，细致的探索此星系的核心及明亮的新诞生星团。影像里由尘埃细丝和气泡组成的错综复杂网络结构，是由从星系核心棒伸出的蜿蜒螺旋臂上之年轻恒星所产生的。天文学家怀疑NGC 1365核心棒的重力场，在此星的系演化中扮演关键性的角色，它将气体和尘埃输送到一个在诞生恒星的混乱涡漩里，最终更把物质馈送给位在此活跃星系核心的超大质量黑洞。

明日的图片: the light, the dark, and the dusty