Webb Captures Luminous, Face-on Spiral Galaxy NGC 7469

The photo of the month

Webb’s photo of the month for December is dominated by NGC 7469, a luminous, face-on spiral galaxy approximately 90,000 light-years in diameter that lies roughly 220 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus.

This spiral galaxy has recently been studied as part of the Great Observatories All-sky LIRGs Survey (GOALS), which intends to examine the physics of star formation, black hole development, and feedback in 4 nearby, merging luminous infrared galaxies. Other galaxies studied as part of the survey include previous ESA Webb Pictures of the Month II ZW 096 and IC 1623.

Features of NGC 7469

NGC 7469 is home to an active galactic nucleus (AGN), which is a highly bright central area that is dominated by the light produced by dust and gas as it falls into the galaxy’s central black hole. This galaxy offers astronomers with the unique chance to study the relationship between AGNs and starburst task due to the fact that this particular object hosts an AGN that is surrounded by a starburst ring at a distance of a mere 1500 light-years.

While 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 challenging for researchers to achieve both the resolution and sensitivity needed to study this relationship in the infrared. Now, with Webb, astronomers can explore the galaxy’s starburst ring, the central AGN, and the gas and dust in between.

The capture of images and the discoveries behind it

Using Webb’s MIRI, NIRCam, and NIRspec instruments to obtain pictures and spectra of NGC 7469 in unprecedented detail, the GOALS team has uncovered a number of details about the object. This includes highly young star-forming clusters never ever seen before, as well as pockets of very warm, turbulent molecular gas, and direct evidence for the destruction of tiny dust grains within a few hundred light-years of the nucleus– proving that the AGN is impacting the surrounding interstellar medium.

Moreover, highly ionized, diffuse atomic gas seems to be exiting the nucleus at approximately 6.4 million kilometers per hr– part of a galactic outflow that had previously been identified from the ground but is currently revealed in stunning detail with Webb. With analysis of the abundant Webb datasets still underway, additional secrets of this local AGN and starburst laboratory are sure to be revealed.

A prominent feature of this image is the striking six-pointed star that perfectly aligns with the heart of NGC 7469. Unlike the galaxy, this is not a real celestial object; however, an imaging artifact known as a diffraction spike caused by the bright, unresolved AGN. Diffraction spikes are patterns created as light bends around the sharp edges of a telescope.

Webb has 3 struts, with two angled at 150 levels from its vertical strut, and its primary mirror is composed of hexagonal segments that each contain edges for light to diffract against. Webb’s struts are designed so that their diffraction spikes partially overlap with those created by the mirrors. Both of these lead to Webb’s complex star pattern.

Read the original article on PHYS.

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