Hot blue stars, giant pinwheels, massive voids: James Webb captures 19 spiral galaxies. See photos

New Delhi

Stunning shots of 19 spiral galaxies taken by the James Webb Space Telescope are literally going to blow your mind. These highly detailed images depict the cosmic wonders in a completely new light. Over 150 astronomers from around the globe came together to snap this beautiful collection of vibrant and gorgeous galaxies.

The project was part of the Physics at High Angular Resolution in Nearby Galaxies (PHANGS) programme.

Astronomers are especially intrigued with these images because they reveal how no two galaxies are the same. This became possible because of the precision that JWST offers. 

“Webb’s new images are extraordinary. They’re mind-blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades," said Janice Lee, a project scientist for strategic initiatives at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, in a statement. 

Like giant pinwheels

These spiral galaxies look like giant pinwheels and the latest images will help scientists understand more about how stars, galaxies and other galactic structures are formed and also about their evolution. 

You can see glowing orange lanes of dust in the photos captured with the JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).

The photos also show structures of gas and dust in these galaxies and stars in the process of being formed. These stars seem to be gathering mass from this gas and dust and so the photos are likely to help explain how galaxies like Milky Way form stars. This particular area can be seen as red "seeds" on the peaks of the dust lanes in these galaxies.

"These are where we can find the newest, most massive stars in the galaxies," Erik Rosolowsky, a professor of physics at the University of Alberta, said in the statement.

The photo of barred spiral galaxy NGC 1300, located 69 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus, especially shows this area quite prominently.

JWST's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) captured the older stars shining through the orange lanes of dust as bright blue specks. The JWST PHANGS image of the spiral galaxy NGC 7496, located 24 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Grus, presents the clearest view of the mature blue stars. 

Massive voids

Some galaxies, such as the NGC 5068, located 20 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo, show large areas of void. 

"These holes may have been created by one or more stars that exploded, carving out giant holes in the interstellar material,"  Adam Leroy, a professor of astronomy at Ohio State University, said in the statement.