James Webb Telescope Uncovers Hidden Structures in Nearby Galaxies

The James Webb Space Telescope has provided unprecedented views of two nearby galaxies, revealing details that were previously hidden by dust.

In the Centaurus A galaxy (NGC 5128), about 11 million light‑years from Earth, JWST’s NIRCam and MIRI instruments pierced a dense dust lane to expose a crowded field of millions of stars, hot dust filaments and a distinctive S‑shaped structure at the core. The observations give the most detailed infrared portrait of the galaxy’s inner region, though the origin of the S‑shaped feature remains unexplained.

Separately, JWST’s Near‑Infrared Spectrograph mapped warm ionized gas in the giant elliptical galaxy NGC 4696, revealing a filament that feeds a rotating circumnuclear disk around its supermassive black hole. The disk, about 800 light‑years across, shows gas moving at speeds up to 600 km s⁻¹, confirming that hot gas can cool, condense into filaments and return to fuel the black hole.

These findings illustrate how JWST’s infrared capabilities are transforming our understanding of galaxy cores, star formation, and black‑hole feeding processes.