Click for original image.

Scientists using the Webb Space Telescope today released false color infrared images of nineteen different spiral galaxies, each showing the complex internal structure that traces of spiral arms, but not always.

A compliation of those infrared images is to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here.

[Webb]’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured millions of stars in these images, which sparkle in blue tones. Some stars are spread throughout the spiral arms, but others are clumped tightly together in star clusters.

The telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) data highlights glowing dust, showing us where it exists behind, around, and between stars. It also spotlights stars that have not yet fully formed – they are still encased in the gas and dust that feed their growth, like bright red seeds at the tips of dusty peaks. “These are where we can find the newest, most massive stars in the galaxies,” said Erik Rosolowsky, a professor of physics at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada.

The data suggests, not unexpectedly, that the central parts of each galaxy are older, formed first, with starbirth occurring later in the outer regions. A lot of further analysis however will be required to understand all the patterns exhibited in these images and their larger significance in connection with galaxy formation.