James Webb Telescope snaps stunning image of Star Formation Wreath in NGC 7469 galaxy

Recently James Webb Telescope has amazed the world with its stunning image of a Star Formation Wreath in the NGC 7469 galaxy. (NASA)

The Webb Telescope image is of NGC 7469, a luminous, face-on spiral galaxy approximately 90000 light-years in diameter that lies roughly 220 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. (NASA)

NGC 7469 is home to an active galactic nucleus (AGN), which is an extremely bright central region that is dominated by the light emitted by dust and gas as it falls into the galaxy’s central black hole. (NASA)

The galaxy provides astronomers with the unique opportunity to study the relationship between AGNs and starburst activity because this object hosts an AGN that is surrounded by a starburst ring at a mere 1500 light-years.  (NASA)

Whereas the NGC 7469 is one of the best studied AGNs in the sky, the compact nature of this system and the presence of a great deal of dust have made it difficult for scientists to achieve both the resolution and sensitivity needed to study this relationship in the infrared. (NASA)

 James Webb is also allowing astronomers to explore the galaxy’s starburst ring, the central AGN, and the gas and dust in between. (NASA)

The team has uncovered several details about the object using James Webb Telescope’s MIRI, NIRCam and NIRspec instruments to obtain images and spectra of NGC 7469 in unprecedented detail. (NASA)

The recent image captured by Webb include very young star-forming clusters that have never been seen before, as well as pockets of very warm, turbulent molecular gas, and direct evidence for the destruction of small dust grains within a few hundred light-years of the nucleus — proving that the AGN is impacting the surrounding interstellar medium. (NASA)

A prominent feature of the captured image is the striking six-pointed star that perfectly aligns with the heart of NGC 7469.(NASA)

Webb’s primary mirror is composed of hexagonal segments that each contain edges for light to diffract against, giving six bright spikes. (NASA)