“Stunning Photo of Barred Spiral Galaxy Captured by James Webb Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI)”

The space photo of the week is a very beautiful barred spiral galaxy just 46 million light-years from Earth.

Scientists used the James Webb telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to take a picture of the galaxy. Many differences can be seen with previous optical observations. In the infrared image, star-forming regions in the spiral arms glow. The young stars emit a lot of energy in the form of radiation. We cannot see this light because it is blocked by dark clouds of dust. Infrared light is not blocked by these dust clouds, so that the stellar nurseries appear clearly in view.

A small but bright core is visible at the center of the galaxy. It houses a supermassive black hole. This black hole gobbles up matter, but also expels a modest amount of matter in the form of extremely powerful jets. NGC 1433’s jet is only 150 light years long. This is the smallest molecular outflow of this type ever observed outside our Milky Way.

A special double ring can be seen around the center. Thanks to the keen eye of Webb’s MIRI, we see that the double ring has a spiral structure.

Barred spiral galaxies such as NGC 1433 and our own Milky Way have a central bar. The spiral arms of a barred spiral galaxy do not emanate from the center, but from the bar. This is especially good to see on optical images of the galaxy.