Webb Telescope Captures ‘Stunning’ Images of 19 Spiral Galaxies

Spiral galaxy NGC 1512, located 30 million light-years away from Earth, is seen in an undated image from the James Webb Space Telescope. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), and the PHANGS team/Handout via Reuters)

WASHINGTO—A batch of newly released images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope show in remarkable detail 19 spiral galaxies residing relatively near our Milky Way, offering new clues on star formation as well as galactic structure and evolution.

The images were made public on Monday by a team of scientists involved in a project called Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) that operates across several major astronomical observatories.