The Centaurus A galaxy, unlike other galaxies nearby, has a lot of activity.
Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Macarena Garcia Marin (ESA Office at STScI)
It’s been almost four years since NASA had released the first image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, showing the sharpest and “deepest” image of the distant universe we’ve ever taken. Now, the agency has released the most detailed images we’ve ever seen of the Centaurus A, a familiar galaxy that had previously been captured on cam by NASA’s older space telescopes. “These images mark four years of better-than-anticipated performance and successful science operations for the most powerful space telescope in history,” NASA wrote in its announcement.
Centaurus A, which is located around 11 million light-years away from our planet, has a lot of activity, unlike other nearby galaxies. It has a supermassive black hole at the center, feeding on the materials around it and releasing enormous amounts of energy as it does. The galaxy also has an unusual structure because of a major collision with another galaxy some 2 billion years ago. All those make Centaurus A the perfect object to observe in order to understand how galaxies and black holes evolve together.
However, the Hubble telescope’s visible light observations were blocked by thick layers of dust covering the galaxy. NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was able to capture its large structures in infrared light, but not its individual stars.
Now, James Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) was able to capture even small details of the galaxy’s rich dust structures, as you can see in the image above. The glowing reddish-purplish dots show dust-rich stars or stellar nurseries, which is where old stars are shedding materials and where new stars are forming. NASA has included a guided tour for the MIRI image, so you can get a better idea of what you’re looking at.
The agency has also released an image showing the combined view from MIRI and James Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instruments, which you can see below. With these images, NASA says scientists can now study Centaurus A star by star to give them the data they need to be able to form a timeline for the galaxy’s evolution.
NASA
