Webb Peers into Brilliant Heart of Messier 77

May 11, 2026 - 09:00

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Webb Peers into Brilliant Heart of Messier 77

$This image of Messier 77 from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) highlights its swirling spiral arms, the dust in its disk and its piercingly bright core like never before. The bright orange lines appearing to radiate out from the galaxy’s center are not actually a feature of the galaxy: they are a type of distortion that arises from the optical design of the telescope. Called diffraction spikes, they are created because the intense light from the unresolved AGN is bent (diffracted) very slightly at the edges of Webb’s hexagonal mirror panels and around one of the struts that hold up its secondary mirror. Image credit: NASA / ESA / CSA / Webb / A. Leroy.$

New images from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope capture the barred spiral galaxy Messier 77 as a whirlpool of glowing dust, newborn stars and a brilliantly active core.

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