Recent observations with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have produced surprising results regarding spiral galaxies. The discovery, made as part of the PHANGS program, attracted the attention of more than 150 astronomers from around the world.
PHANGS is a project that aims to study nearby galaxies at high angular resolution. The scientists used various instruments for their research, including the Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).
One of the most important results was the imaging of the infrared mother lode of the JWST spiral galaxies. These unique images, with incredible resolution, revealed previously unobservable details and increased our understanding of the star formation processes in these galaxies.
Astrophysicist Thomas Williams of the University of Oxford expressed his surprise: “I feel like our team is in a constant state of being overwhelmed (in a positive way) by the amount of detail in these images.”
The images clearly show gaps in the gas distribution caused by supernovae, as well as gas filaments extending beyond the spiral structure.
University of Alberta physics professor Eric Rosolowski notes that “these structures follow the same pattern in certain parts of galaxies, and their distance tells us a lot about how the galaxy distributes its gas and dust.”
In addition to these discoveries, scientists are turning their attention to the central regions of spiral galaxies, where supermassive black holes and bright star clusters reside.
The data obtained from the PHANGS team represents a vast amount of information, including a catalog of approximately 100,000 star clusters, making this project one of the largest to date.
Eric Rosolowski emphasizes: “The amount of analysis that can be done with these images is far beyond what our team can handle.”
