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Webb’s Stunning Collection of 19 Face-On Spiral Galaxies

Nineteen Webb images of face-on spiral galaxies are combined in a mosaic, some within squares, and others horizontal or vertical rectangles. Galaxies’ spiral arms appear in shades of orange, and many of their centers have light blue hazes.

This collection of 19 face-on spiral galaxies from the James Webb Space Telescope in near- and mid-infrared light is at once overwhelming and awe-inspiring.

“Webb’s new images are extraordinary,” said Janice Lee, a project scientist for strategic initiatives at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. “They’re mind blowing even for researchers who have studied these same galaxies for decades. Bubbles and filaments are resolved down to the smallest scales ever observed, and tell a story about the star formation cycle.”

Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured millions of stars in these images. Older stars appear blue here, and are clustered at the galaxies’ cores. 

The telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) observations highlight glowing dust, showing where it exists around and between stars – appearing in shades of red and orange. Stars that haven’t yet fully formed and are encased in gas and dust appear bright red.

Webb’s high-resolution images are the first to show large, spherical shells in the gas and dust in such exquisite detail. These holes may have been created by stars that exploded and carved out giant regions in the interstellar material.

Another eye-catching detail? Several galaxy cores are awash in pink-and-red diffraction spikes. These are clear signs that these galaxies may have central active supermassive black holes or central star clusters.

These spiral galaxies are Webb’s first big batch of contributions to the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program, that includes existing images and data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope’s Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE), and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). With Webb’s images, researchers can now examine these galaxies in ultraviolet, visible, infrared, and radio light.

Explore side-by-side images of Webb and Hubble’s views of these 19 galaxies.

About the Data

  • Data Description
    Data DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
    Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.

    This image was created with Webb data from proposal: 2107 (J. Lee). Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI).

  • Instrument
    InstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.
    NIRCam, MIRI
  • Filters
    FiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.
    F2100W, F1130W, F1000W, F770W, F360M, F335M, F300M
  • Object Description
    Object DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.
    PHANGS Galaxies
  • Release Date
    January 29, 2024
  • Science Release
    NASA’s Webb Depicts Staggering Structure in 19 Nearby Spiral Galaxies
    Read the release
  • Credit
    Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, PHANGS Team, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford); Designer: Elizabeth Wheatley (STScI)

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Nineteen Webb images of face-on spiral galaxies are combined in a mosaic, some within squares, and others horizontal or vertical rectangles. Galaxies’ spiral arms appear in shades of orange, and many of their centers have light blue hazes.
Color Info
Color InfoA brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented.

This image is a composite of separate exposures acquired by the James Webb Space Telescope using the NIRCam and MIRI instruments. Several filters were used to sample specific wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are:   Red = F2100W + F1130W + F1000W + F770WGreen = F770W + F360MBlue = F335M + F300M

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Last Updated
Aug 28, 2025
Contact
Media

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Image Credit

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, PHANGS Team, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford)

Designer Credit

Elizabeth Wheatley (STScI)

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