A mere 56 million light-years distant toward the southern constellation Fornax, NGC 1365 is an enormous barred spiral galaxy about 200,000 light-years in diameter. That’s twice the size of our own barred spiral Milky Way. This sharp image from the James Webb Telescope‘s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) reveals stunning details of this magnificent spiral in infrared light. Webb’s field of view stretches about 60,000 light-years across NGC 1365, exploring the galaxy’s core and bright newborn star clusters. The intricate network of dusty filaments and bubbles is created by young stars along spiral arms winding from the galaxy’s central bar. Astronomers suspect the gravity field of NGC 1365’s bar plays a crucial role in the galaxy’s evolution, funneling gas and dust into a star-forming maelstrom and ultimately feeding material into the active galaxy’s central, supermassive black hole.
Never miss me! Subscribe for free. My Huge Radar has real-time weather tracking, current temperatures, and severe weather watches and warnings. Get detailed Indiana conditions by clicking here. Click here to see my central Indiana 7-Day Forecast. Follow these links to get my forecasts for Lafayette, Muncie, Hendricks County, and Hamilton County. Need a second opinion? Click here for central Indiana National Weather Service forecasts. (Some charts via WeatherBELL.)
