NGC 5068 (MIRI image)

A delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. In this image, from Webb’s MIRI instrument, the dusty structure of the spiral galaxy and glowing bubbles of gas containing newly-formed star clusters are particularly prominent. These bright tendrils of gas belong to the barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068, located around 17 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.

Learn more about this image here.

MIRI was contributed by ESA and NASA, with the instrument designed and built by a consortium of nationally funded European Institutes (The MIRI European Consortium) in partnership with JPL and the University of Arizona.

[Image Description: A close-in image of a spiral galaxy, showing its core and part of a spiral arm. A few bright stars are visible throughout it, concentrated in the barred core. Clumps and filaments of dust thread through it, forming an almost skeletal structure that follows the twist of the galaxy and its spiral arm. Large, glowing bubbles of red gas are hidden in the dust.]