NGC 1365 – MIRI

NGC 1365 is a double-barred spiral galaxy that lies about 56 million light-years away from Earth. It’s one of the largest galaxies currently known to astronomers.

The James Webb Space Telescope provides insight into how the formation of young stars influences the evolution of nearby galaxies. In observations of NGC 1365 by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), clumps of dust and gas have absorbed the light from forming stars and emitted it back out in the infrared, lighting up an intricate network of cavernous bubbles and filamentary shells created by young stars releasing energy into the galaxy’s spiral arms. (Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, Janice Lee (NSF's NOIRLab), Image processing: A. Pagan (STScI))