The James Webb Space Telescope has just given a spiral galaxy 230 million light-years away a shiny new glamor photo perfect enough for the Christmas tree.
Although the galaxy has the rather unglamorous name of NGC 7469, it has been a fascinating subject to study.
JWST has looked at NGC 7469 as part of a survey to understand star formation, the growth of supermassive black holes, and how galaxies gravitationally interact and merge across the vast gulfs of space and time .
NGC 7469 is also pretty special. It has elegant and beautiful spiral arms that we can see in its full extent, thanks to a peculiar orientation: the plane of the galactic plane is looking almost directly at us, giving us an impressive view of the structure of the galaxy .
The galaxy also has a very bright center, especially when it comes to infrared radiation.
This is because the supermassive black hole around which the entire galaxy orbits is active: it is surrounded by material that is falling, or accreting, into the black hole, a process that generates a large amount of light as the gravity and friction heat up the material that makes it glow.
The new JWST image of NGC 7469. (ESA/Webb, NASA and CSA, L. Armus, AS Evans)
About 1,500 light-years away from the galactic center of NGC 7469 is another bright ring that exhibits furious star-forming activity, known as a starburst. Because we can see the galaxy so clearly, scientists can study it to better understand the link between a starburst ring and an active galactic nucleus.
Like the galactic core, the starburst rings glow in the infrared, the range of wavelengths in which JWST sees the Universe in such spectacular detail. Their observations of galaxies like NGC 7469 are expected to provide unprecedented insight into these processes and how they are linked.
Scientists have already found new clusters of star formation and direct evidence that dust is being destroyed very close to the galactic core, showing that the activity is affecting the surrounding galaxy.
They also found that diffuse, highly ionized atomic gas is blowing away from the galactic center at about 6.4 million kilometers (4 million miles) per hour. Shocks from this wind, a recent paper currently in preprint, do not influence the starburst ring.
A 2008 Hubble image of Arp 298. (NASA, ESA, The Hubble Heritage Team, ESA/Hubble Collaboration and A. Evans)
Another galaxy is just to the lower left of the JWST image. This is IC 5283, and it is locked in a gravitational dance with NGC 7469. Collectively, the two galaxies are known as Arp 298. You can see bright red enhanced regions at the edge of NGC 7469 closer to IC 5283; this is likely because the larger galaxy is drinking nutritious star-forming gas from its smaller companion.
The starburst and possibly even galactic core activity in NGC 7469 is believed to be the result of the interaction between the two galaxies.
The large six-point feature that dominates the image is JWST’s diffraction peaks, an artifact generated by the telescope’s physical structure. So it’s not actually real… but it sure looks pretty.
You can download wallpaper-sized versions of the new image from the ESA JWST website.