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NASA Webb Uncovers Unusual Galaxy Shaped by Cosmic Collision

6 min read

NASA Webb Uncovers Unusual Galaxy Shaped by Cosmic Collision

6 Min Read

NASA Webb Uncovers Unusual Galaxy Shaped by Cosmic Collision

A horizontal image of the galaxy Centaurus A stretches across a black background filled with thousands of tiny purple, pink, and white points of light. The galaxy is brightest at its center, where a brilliant white and pale pink glow radiates outward. Eight diffraction spikes extend from the central glow. Delicate loops and wispy ribbons of pink and lavender arc above and below the center of the image in the shape of an ‘S’. A band of gray and white dust in the shape of a parallelogram cuts across the middle of the galaxy. Mottled patches and bright knots are scattered throughout the dusty band. The galaxy’s outer edges fade into soft, cloud-like plumes with feathery textures that stretch toward the left and right sides of the image. Against the surrounding darkness, a few bright foreground stars shine with Webb’s distinctive diffraction spikes, while countless fainter stars create a speckled backdrop.

The mid-infrared view of Centaurus A from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals dusty structures and hidden activity within the nearby, active galaxy.

Credits:
Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Macarena Garcia Marin (ESA Office at STScI)

In new images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to celebrate its fourth science anniversary, a familiar galaxy transforms into something far richer, and far more complex, than ever seen before. Webb’s unprecedented sensitivity across near- and mid-infrared wavelengths cuts through the thick lanes of dust that obscure Centaurus A’s center in visible light, showing a densely packed tapestry of individual stars and an active, everchanging galaxy. These images mark four years of better-than-anticipated performance and successful science operations for the most powerful space telescope in history.

Centaurus A is 11 million light-years away from Earth, relatively close in cosmic terms. Yet, unlike most nearby galaxies, it is very active, making it a powerful laboratory for understanding how galaxies and black holes grow and evolve together.

Image: Centaurus A (MIRI Image)

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The mid-infrared view of Centaurus A from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals dusty structures and hidden activity within the nearby, active galaxy.

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Macarena Garcia Marin (ESA Office at STScI)

At its core sits a supermassive black hole actively feeding on surrounding material. As it does, the black hole launches powerful jets and releases enormous amounts of energy, shaping the galaxy around it. At the same time, Centaurus A bears the scars of a dramatic past: a major collision with another galaxy roughly two billion years ago. The aftermath of that merger is still visible today in its unusual structure and ongoing star formation.

Visible light observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope could not reveal the central region where dust blocked the view, while NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope revealed large scale structures in the infrared without resolving individual stars. Now, Webb brings both clarity and depth, exposing the galaxy’s inner workings star by star.

Interactive: Journey into Centaurus A

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Use this interactive tool to journey into NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared view of Centaurus A, where dust gives way to a rich landscape of stars and hidden features.

NASA / STScI

“No single telescope tells the whole story,” said Shawn Domagal-Goldman, division director, Astrophysics, NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Discoveries build over time and new observatories expand on the foundations laid by earlier missions. Webb represents the most powerful step forward yet, opening a window into wavelengths and details never before accessible. This allows astronomers to examine structures and processes that other telescopes could not see.”

Dust, awe

Webb’s mid-infrared vision highlights the galaxy’s rich dust structures, which glow in intricate shapes that surprise and even perplex astronomers. A warped, parallelogram-like band cuts across the galaxy’s center, while wisps of material stretch outward like cosmic clouds.

An “S” shaped feature, most notable in the image from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), is also unusual and invites questions that need further study to answer. What created this shape? How does the black hole influence it? Is it influenced by merger-induced star formation?

Many of the glowing red points in the MIRI image are dust-rich stars or stellar nurseries, where aging stars are shedding material back into space or new stars are forming. This dust is the raw ingredient for future generations of stars and planets, making it central to the ongoing life cycle of the galaxy.

Image: Centaurus A Crop (NIRCam & MIRI)

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In the combined mid- and near-infrared view of Centaurus A, the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope brings out the galaxy’s dense field of millions of stars.

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI), Joseph DePasquale (STScI), Macarena Garcia Marin (ESA Office at STScI)

Written in its stars

With Webb’s high resolution, astronomers can now study Centaurus A star by star, even in its long-obscured central region. What looks “grainy” in the image from Webb, most obvious in the combined MIRI and NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) view, is actually a densely packed field of individual stars, together carrying information about the galaxy’s past.

With Webb’s view of Centaurus A, it becomes a case of galactic archaeology. Each star revealed helps to reconstruct when different events happened: when older stars first formed, when activity slowed down, a burst of star formation during the collision, and stars born from gas stirred in its aftermath. Together, they form a timeline of the galaxy’s evolution.

Dynamic black hole

Webb’s capabilities go beyond imaging. By analyzing light with spectroscopy, astronomers can measure how gas moves within the galaxy.

Early findings from Webb show fast-moving ionized gas flowing outward, likely driven by the black hole’s activity, and warmer molecular hydrogen in a warped rotating disk near the center. These observations help explore one of astronomy’s biggest questions: How does a black hole influence an entire galaxy?

The answer appears to be complex. The black hole can trigger star formation by compressing gas, but also limit it by pushing material away. Centaurus A offers a rare, nearby view of this cosmic interplay.

By tracing dust in never-before-seen detail, resolving millions of stars, and revealing the motion of gas near a supermassive black hole, Webb transforms Centaurus A into a vivid record of cosmic history.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

To learn more about Webb, visit:

https://science.nasa.gov/webb

Downloads & Related Information

The following sections contain links to download this article’s images and videos in all available resolutions followed by related information links, media contacts, and if available, research paper and Spanish translation links.

Related Images & Videos

Centaurus A (MIRI Image)

The mid-infrared view of Centaurus A from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals dusty structures and hidden activity within the nearby, active galaxy.

A diagonal image of the galaxy Centaurus A stretches from the upper left to the lower right against a deep black background filled with countless tiny orange, blue, and white points of light. The galaxy is brightest at its center with a white glowing core. A broad band of golden-orange dust cuts across the middle of the galaxy, forming a distinctive parallelogram shape. The dust in this feature is richly textured, with mottled patches, bright knots, and intricate filaments throughout. Just above the center, delicate peach-colored ribbons trace an S-shaped structure. Rather than appearing smooth, the galaxy has a finely speckled texture created by millions of individually resolved stars, which fill the central regions and extend into the surrounding glow. The galaxyu2019s outer edges are reddish-orange and dissolve into diffuse, cloud-like plumes with feathery textures that stretch beyond the dust lane. Against the surrounding darkness, several bright foreground stars display Webbu2019s distinctive diffraction spikes.

Centaurus A Crop (NIRCam and MIRI Image)

In the combined mid- and near-infrared view of Centaurus A, the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope brings out the galaxy’s dense field of millions of stars.

A three-panel comparison shows different views of galaxy Centaurus A. The upper left panel is a visible-light image of the full galaxy surrounded by a black sky filled with white, blue, and yellow stars. Centaurus A has a dark dust lane crossing a bright center. A white outlined box marks the region observed by Webb. The upper right panel zooms into that outlined region with a combined near- and mid-infrared view from Webb. The galaxy is oriented diagonally, with a bright white core surrounded by an orange glow. A broad band of golden-orange dust forms a parallelogram across the center, countless tiny stars create a fine speckled texture throughout the image. A dashed outline indicates the smaller region shown below, Webbu2019s mid-infrared view. The galaxy stretches horizontally across a black background scattered with purple and white stars, the parallelogram glows white. Wispy clouds and looping pink structures surround the center. The galaxyu2019s edges fade into soft, feathery plumes.

Centaurus A Context Image (ESO and Webb Images)

A ground-based image of nearby galaxy Centaurus A from the European Southern Observatory (top left) puts the near-infrared and mid-infrared views from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope image into context.

Annotated image of galaxy Centaurus A captured by Webbu2019s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), with compass arrows, a scale bar, and color key for reference. Title text at top left reads u201cJames Webb Space Telescope, Centaurus A, NGC 5128.u201d A horizontal image of the galaxy stretches across a black background filled with thousands of tiny purple, pink, and white points of light. The galaxy is brightest at its center. Delicate loops and ribbons of pink and lavender arc above and below the center of the image in the shape of an u2018Su2019. A band of gray and white dust in the shape of a parallelogram cuts across the middle of the galaxy. The galaxyu2019s outer edges fade into soft plumes with feathery textures that stretch toward the left and right sides of the image. Below the image is a color key showing which of Webbu2019s MIRI filters were used to create the image and which visible-light color is assigned to each filter. From left to right: F560W is blue; F770W is green; and F1000W is red.

Centaurus A (MIRI Compass Image)

Annotated image of the active galaxy Centaurus A captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), with compass arrows, a scale bar, and color key for reference. The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note …

Annotated image of galaxy Centaurus A captured by Webbu2019s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), with compass arrows, a scale bar, and color key for reference. Title text at top left reads u201cJames Webb Space Telescope, Centaurus A, NGC 5128.u201d A diagonal image of the galaxy stretches from the upper left to the lower right against a deep black background filled with tiny orange, blue, and white points of light. A band of golden-orange dust cuts across the middle of the galaxy, forming a distinctive parallelogram shape. Just above the center, peach-colored ribbons trace an S-shaped structure. The galaxyu2019s outer edges are reddish-orange. Below the image is a color key showing which of Webbu2019s filters were used to create the image and the visible-light color assigned. NIRCam filters, from left to right: F090W is blue, F187N is blue, F200W is cyan, F277W is yellow, F335M is orange, F444W is red. MIRI filters, from left to right: F560 is yellow, F770W is orange, F1000W is red.

Centaurus A Crop (NIRCam and MIRI Compass Image)

Annotated image of the active galaxy Centaurus A captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), with compass arrows, a scale bar, and color key for reference. The north and east compass arrows show the orientat…

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Last Updated

Jul 06, 2026

Location

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Contact

Media

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

Hannah Braun
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

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