US EditionWebb Spots Details in Nearby Spiral Galaxy NGC 5134
The James Webb Space Telescope's images of NGC 5134 reveal star-forming gas and dust structures, aiding astronomers in studying stellar birth processes in detail.
- On February 20, the James Webb Space Telescope used its instruments to capture images of NGC 5134, revealing its structure.
- PHANGS, the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS survey, is a multiwavelength, multitelescope study that started years ago with ALMA and the Hubble and uses JWST to resolve giant molecular clouds and HII regions.
- Using MIRI and NIRCam, Webb reveals giant molecular clouds, HII regions, and stellar clusters, with gas recycled through hot and cold phases in spiral arms.
- The survey's catalogs have informed over 150 scientific papers and public outreach, with NGC 5134 featured by ESA Picture of the Month and a JWST image on a US Postal Service stamp.
- Linking cosmic and deep time, the light left soon after Tyrannosaurus rex went extinct, illustrating spiral density waves that compress gas and Webb's dust-penetrating capability makes NGC 5134 a 'missing link' for PHANGS imaging.
23 Articles
23 Articles
A Glorious Spiral of Star Formation
Stars peek through the dusty, winding arms of NGC 5134, a spiral galaxy located 65 million light-years away, in this Feb. 20, 2026, image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument collects the mid-infrared light emitted by the warm dust speckled through the galaxy’s clouds, tracing the clumps and strands of dusty gas. The telescope’s Near Infrared Camera records shorter-wavelength near-infrared light, mostly from the…
The new image obtained by the space observatory allows the scientific community to study in detail how gas and other stellar phenomena flow
Webb spots details in nearby spiral galaxy NGC 5134
Two powerful instruments of the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope joined forces to create this scenic galaxy view. This spiral galaxy is named NGC 5134, and it is located 65 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. Though 65 million light-years may seem like a huge distance—the light that Webb collected to create this image has been journeying to us from NGC 5134 since soon after Tyrannosaurus rex went extinct—NGC 5134 is fairl…
Webb discovers new features in neighboring spiral galaxy
NGC 5134, a spiral galaxy located 65 million light-years away, has been captured in stunning detail by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument and Near Infrared Camera have provided valuable insights into the galaxy’s structure and composition. The Mid-Infrared Instrument of the James Webb Space Telescope collects mid-infrared light emitted by the […]
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- 64% of the sources are Center
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