The James Webb Space Telescope has released highly detailed images of 19 spiral galaxies. These observations add new near- and mid-infrared puzzle pieces to the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby Galaxies (PHANGS) programme, a worldwide astronomy project. In addition to these images, the PHANGS team has also released the largest catalogue to date of nearly 100,000 star clusters. By fully cataloguing all types of stars, we can create a detailed holistic view of their life cycles.

Image descriptions:
Image 1:

The nucleus of NGC 1087 is a short, light yellow line. Its tangled, orange arms start from the centre and extend upwards and downwards, rotating clockwise.

Figure 2:

NGC 3627, a spiral galaxy with a barred face. Its core consists of a bright blue point surrounded by a lighter blue haze of stars forming an angular oval. Two distinct arms begin to appear brown or greenish within the blue bar and extend towards the edges in bright orange.

Figure 3:

The nucleus of NGC 7496 begins as a bright white spot that fades to bright orange. Eight prominent spikes emerge from the centre. A bright orange arc, resembling an S, forms a bar and two of the arms. The image is largely orange and red in colour and flows counterclockwise.