Webb Measures Distance to Farthest Fast Radio Burst, Suggesting Origin

FRB 20240304B (NIRCam Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) was able to detect the host galaxy of the fast radio burst called FRB 20240304B, whose location is shown by the white cross. They found it is a small dwarf galaxy actively forming stars. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Themiya Nanayakkara (USYD); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

Farthest Fast Radio Burst Host Galaxy Spectrum

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope were able to study the host galaxy of the most distant known fast radio burst (FRB). They confirmed it has a cosmological redshift of 2.148 and that the FRB occurred just 3 billion years after the big bang. Credit Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI); Science: Manisha Caleb (SIfA)

FRB 20240304B (NIRCam Compass Image)

This image of the host galaxy of fast radio burst FRB 20240304B, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), shows compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Manisha Caleb (SIfA); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

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First discovered in 2007, fast radio bursts are enigmatic, millisecond-long flashes of radio emission from the distant universe. Their origin remains uncertain, particularly since most are seen once and never again. Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have pinpointed the host galaxy of the most distant fast radio burst (FRB) seen to date. Their finding has implications for what kind of energetic event creates these bursts.

“What makes fast radio bursts interesting is that we don't know what generates them. We have theories for what objects produce them, but we don't have conclusive proof,” said Manisha Caleb of the University of Sydney, lead author on the study published Thursday in the journal Science.

The MeerTRAP team used the MeerKAT telescope to detect the burst on March 4, 2024, leading to its designation as FRB 20240304B. The radio data from this burst suggested that it was extremely distant, possibly the most distant one seen to date. To confirm that distance, though, astronomers would need to study its host galaxy. Although they knew the location of the FRB very precisely, the world’s largest ground-based telescopes could not see any galaxy at that spot in the sky. As a result, the team turned to the Webb telescope.

Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument detected a galaxy in the right location, and its NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) instrument provided a precise measurement of the galaxy’s redshift: 2.148, corresponding to a time just 3 billion years after the big bang. The vast majority of FRBs detected to date occurred billions of years later in cosmic history.

The team discovered that the host galaxy of FRB 20240304B was not typical of other galaxies with FRBs. Most FRB galaxies are massive star-forming galaxies, but the galaxy they found was 1,000 times less massive than they expected.

“We thought it would be a big, nicely formed galaxy with lots of stars, and instead it was a little dwarf galaxy, although it was actively forming stars,” said Caleb.

“The host sticks out in the whole galaxy sample that we have. And it definitely was not what we were expecting,” said Ben Stappers of the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, a co-author on the paper. “This combination of using the MeerTRAP project on the MeerKAT telescope to discover and localize these distant bursts and Webb to study their hosts is very exciting.”

The galaxy existed at the height of “cosmic noon” – a period in the history of the universe when star formation was at its peak. The galaxy’s rate of star formation suggested that the majority of its stars may have formed within just 30 million years.

This has important implications for the origin of fast radio bursts. One theory suggests that FRBs may originate from the merger of two neutron stars. However, the process of orbiting neutron stars gradually approaching closer and closer until they collide is expected to take billions of years. As a result, FRBs would be expected to be associated with older galaxies containing more evolved stellar populations.

A second theory proposes that an FRB can originate from a single, young, highly magnetic neutron star known as a magnetar through a mechanism like starquakes. In that case, once a massive star explodes as a supernova and leaves behind a magnetar, an FRB might occur relatively quickly with no large time delay. As a result, FRBs would also be expected to be found in younger galaxies like the host of FRB 20240304B.

“Our work suggests that it’s very unlikely that this FRB was produced by a merger,” said Caleb.

"Our results further show the amazing capability of Webb where we can push boundaries beyond what was previously possible," said co-author Themiya Nanayakkara of the University of Sydney, Australia.

In addition to being a record-holder, the new FRB enabled the team to learn more about the billions of light-years of apparently empty space between the burst and Earth.

“A fast radio burst is almost like a cosmic flashlight. It lights up everything along the path. It carries an imprint of everything that it travels through, so you can use it to trace the ‘cosmic web’ – the otherwise invisible matter and structures that it encounters along the way,” said co-author J. Xavier Prochaska of the University of California, Santa Cruz.

The team found the imprint of two cosmic structures on the FRB’s signal – one previously unknown galaxy cluster at a redshift of 0.3 (about 3.5 billion light-years from Earth), and the nearby Virgo Cluster, which is located about 54 million light-years from Earth.

In the future, the team is excited about the potential to discover more distant FRBs. They estimate that the MeerKAT telescope may be able to detect and localize several FRBs per year at a redshift greater than 1.0, meaning they existed more than halfway back to the start of the universe. As other new radio telescope facilities and instruments come online, that discovery pace may grow. The Webb telescope will be essential for characterizing those distant host galaxies.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source:  NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/Latest News

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Details:

Last Updated: Oct 09, 2026
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Contact Media:

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

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NASA’s Webb Captures Commotion From Nebula’s Stellar Jets

NGC 7129 (NIRCam Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed many protostars and stars within the glowing gases of  NGC 7129. Hot, atomic hydrogen gas is shown here in the golden region, while cooler, molecular hydrogen gas, shocked by embedded protostars, is represented in red. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

NGC 7129 Side-by-Side (Spitzer and Webb Image)

NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope observed the gas and dust within NGC 7129; however, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s improved resolution shows more detailed gas and dust filaments, along with many background galaxies. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, NASA-JPL; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

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A cauldron of cosmic creation is being revealed in a new image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Webb has unveiled numerous stars formerly hidden by clouds of dust in a stellar nursery known as NGC 7129, which resides about 3,300 light-years from Earth.

Stars, the engines of elemental creation, have life cycles that begin with their birth in molecular clouds – cold, dense regions of dust and gas. Because of these dusty cocoons, young stars are often impossible to view by many telescopes, particularly those incapable of capturing infrared light. Webb, however, has a high degree of infrared sensitivity, allowing astronomers to peer through that dust and study the beginning of the star life cycle.

The stars from this cluster are in different stages of their development, as the more massive stars form and evolve the fastest. The most massive (and the most mature) is the region’s luminous central star, LkH(alpha) 234 (pronounced Lick-H-alpha). This star, which sports the image’s most prominent diffraction pattern, is a pre-main-sequence star weighing around 5 to 8 times the mass of our Sun. Pre-main-sequence stars like these have mostly finished gathering mass and are contracting under the force of gravity, causing their temperatures to rise. In time, this star will fuse its own hydrogen like our Sun.

The cavity to its left, which appears in gold and spans about 3.5 light-years, is the largest demonstration of the central star’s impact. Outflows from an earlier stage of the star’s life cycle carve into the dense molecular cloud of hydrogen. Both the outflows and the star’s light energize the gas, causing it to glow. While much of this hydrogen gas is blown away, a large amount is also compressed, creating the conditions for even more stars to form.

A few of these stars are visible within the cavity. Several of them are also pre-main-sequence and emit stellar winds. The nearby bow shocks, the curved compressed gas that appears near the stars, are created as those winds push into the energetic gas and create their own, smaller cavities.

Together, the central and embedded stars also create the sharp ridge seen at the top of the golden cavity. Their light generates a hot environment that pushes against the colder and denser molecular gas outside the cavity, and creates a boundary known as a photodissociation region. In this region, the molecules of hydrogen break down into atoms. By influencing the temperature and chemistry of the region, this collection of stars offers insight into how these molecular clouds will gradually erode over millions of years.

The region to the right of the central star narrates a different, but equally chaotic tale. This clumpy matter represented in red hides much younger objects than those on the left: protostars. The protostar stage is earlier than the pre-main-sequence stage and occurs after molecular clouds of gas and dust initially compress and fragment.

As the protostars accumulate matter and increase their mass, they eject outflows of superheated material. These outflows interact with the dense, gray, translucent matter the protostars are wrapped within, creating shocks that cause a textured appearance. The red glow is also the result of the interaction. Multiple outflows from multiple stars overlap from our point of view, leading to the scene’s chaotic look.

More of these protostellar outflows can be seen at the upper left of the image, near a blue-colored nebula. The center of this blue region hosts a protostar surrounded by a donut-shaped disk of material. This disk casts a shadow against the surrounding nebula, reminiscent of a similar structure known as the “Bat Shadow” that was observed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.

Webb’s high spatial resolution reveals many rich structures in the region’s gas, building on research done previously by NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope. Astronomers will continue to use this Webb data to study how the stars and protostars in this region influence the surrounding gas and dust.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/Latest News

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Last Updated: Oct 06, 2026
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
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laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

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Space Telescope Science Institute
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Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

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NASA’s Webb Provides Crash Course on Planet-Shattering Collisions

Extreme Debris Disk (Artist’s Concept)

The types of collisions within young stellar systems known as extreme debris disks are relevant to scientists’ understanding of our own solar system, which is thought to have undergone similar impact events that created our Moon and shaped Earth’s initial state.Credit Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

Composition of Extreme Debris Disks Across Time

By investigating the compositions of extreme debris disks, scientists inferred that silica-rich disks are produced by high-energy impacts of Mars-sized objects, while silica-poor disks are created by less energetic events from Moon-sized bodies. Credit Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

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The environment surrounding a star changes as it ages, beginning with a juvenile, gas-rich protoplanetary disk where forming planets can reside, before evolving to a gas-poor debris disk. During its mission lifetime, NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope examined the debris disk stage and discovered a subclass termed extreme debris disks. These systems harbor unusually large amounts of warm dust close to the star, in the region comparable to where rocky planets orbit in our solar system. A team of astronomers led by Kate Su of the Space Science Institute in Boulder, Colorado investigated these intriguing objects with Webb.

Contrary to theoretical predictions, which suggest we should observe many extreme debris disks, observations indicate that these environments are rare. Scientists estimate roughly only 1% of young stars show observable signatures of this phase based on the data collected so far, including possibly our own solar system during its formation. Despite their rarity, the team was able to compile a sample of 21 extreme debris disks, including five from Spitzer’s archival data and 16 from Webb, with 12 newly observed disks and follow-up observations on four of Spitzer’s.

“This is the first time we have gathered enough systems to truly understand this subclass that we call extreme debris disks,” said Su, lead author of the paper. “Before Webb, we had limited information. We knew that they are weird and very different from the typical cold debris disks that we know, like Vega and Fomalhaut. Now that we have more data, we can pin down what these disks represent for planet formation and evolution.”

The team confirmed that extreme debris disks share three key properties: smaller dust grains than those in protoplanetary or classic debris disks, a high concentration of warm dust, and irregular brightness variations, all revealed by mid-infrared spectra from Webb and Spitzer.

To determine the driving factor for these qualities, the team studied the mineralogical makeup of the disks. They found that their sample could be categorized into silica-rich and silica-poor disks. Volcanic glass like obsidian is one example of silica-rich material found on Earth, whereas the silica-poor mineral forsterite appears as green sand grains on some beaches in Hawaii. An extreme debris disk’s category relays information on the type of collisions producing the impact debris and may help account for its variability in infrared brightness.

“To just see their mid-infrared emission and beautiful spectral features with Webb, which allowed us to identify their compositions, was the most exciting thing for me,” said Agnes Kospal of Konkoly Observatory in Budapest, Hungary, and a coauthor of the study. “We have no other way to study these planetary embryos directly because they are too small.”

Of their sample, about one-third is silica-rich, suggesting these disks are produced by high-energy impacts between Mars-sized bodies where a significant portion of the material is vaporized. The remaining two-thirds of their sample is silica-poor, indicating that the collisions are occurring on smaller scales, like grazing, between Moon-sized objects. Silica-rich disks are found only around stars younger than 300 million years, while silica-poor disks persist across a broad range of ages and often show greater brightness variability. The team proposes that this variability is driven by the rapid evolution of fresh debris through orbital changes and additional impacts.

Their findings can be applied to our own solar system, which may have experienced more than one extreme debris disk phase.

“How rocky planets formed and giant planets evolved are part of the broader story of the solar system’s formation. It’s all one story,” said Su. “Our work on extreme debris disks helps us bring together the big picture of what we currently understand.”

Simulations suggest that terrestrial planets, such as Earth, should form within the first few hundred million years of a solar system’s formation. This period fits with the ages of silica-rich extreme debris disks observed so far and aligns with the estimation that Earth and the Moon formed around 100 million years after the Sun formed, with the Moon likely being the result of a collision between Earth and a Mars-sized object.

As for whether our Sun underwent a silica-poor extreme disk phase, if older silica-poor disks and their random intervals of infrared brightness do reflect orbital instability, this would be broadly consistent with the Late Heavy Bombardment hypothesis for our solar system. In that scenario, the gas giant planets migrated significant distances, gravitationally disrupting the orbits of smaller bodies and triggering catastrophic collisions that generated the short-lived, dust-rich phases observed in extreme debris disks.

“Of course, there’s many things we still don’t know about these disks,” said Attila Moor of Konkoly Observatory, a coauthor of the study. “We expect no silica-rich systems among older extreme debris disks. We only have three disks in our sample that fit that age criteria, so it’ll be nice to observe more of these systems to confirm our hypothesis.”

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/Latest News

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Last Updated: Oct 01, 2026
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Contact Media:

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
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laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Abigail Major
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

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NASA’s Webb Reveals Dynamic Panorama of Star Formation

IC 348 (NIRCam Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently observed IC 348, a star-forming region just 1,000 light-years away from Earth. Webb’s sharp vision revealed tiny brown dwarfs, some just twice Jupiter’s mass, and young stars ejecting powerful jets crashing into surrounding gas and dust.Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Kevin Luhman (PSU), Catarina Alves de Oliveira (ESA), Mahdi Zamani (ESA/Webb)

IC 348 Collage

This collage features a collection of insets from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s image of star-forming region IC 348: embedded stars, a central star cluster, faint outflows, Herbig-Haro objects, gravitational lensing, and spiral galaxies. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Kevin Luhman (PSU), Catarina Alves de Oliveira (ESA), Mahdi Zamani (ESA/Webb)

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This starry view of the nearby star-forming region IC 348 is one of the largest images released to date from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Using Webb, astronomers searched IC 348 for brown dwarfs, which are less massive than the smallest stars. The researchers discovered brown dwarfs just twice the mass of Jupiter, bringing the study of these curious objects into a new mass range and revealing new insights about the star formation process.

The star-forming region IC 348 is located just 1,000 light-years away in the constellation Perseus. In regions like IC 348, cold clouds of molecular hydrogen gas collapse to form new stars, creating glowing, sculpted scenes like this one. The star-formation process can create widely varied objects, from massive stars that expire after only a few million years in core-collapse supernova explosions to the smallest and most common stars, which are long lived and produce powerful stellar storms.

The smallest stars weigh in at around 8 percent of the Sun’s mass. Below this mass lies a strange class of objects called brown dwarfs. Brown dwarfs form in the same way stars do, through the collapse of molecular clouds. However, unlike stars, the cores of brown dwarfs never become hot enough to fuse ordinary hydrogen into helium (though many briefly fuse deuterium, or heavy hydrogen, early in their lives).

What’s still not clear, and what researchers hoped to learn by using Webb’s sensitive instruments to study IC 348, is how small the smallest objects created by the star-formation process are. In other words, how small is the smallest brown dwarf?

Researchers seeking to answer this question first used Webb to study IC 348 in 2022, when they discovered brown dwarfs with masses as low as three to four times the mass of Jupiter. Now, the same research team has used Webb to probe even deeper into this region in search of even smaller brown dwarfs. The team used Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) in 2024 to capture the warm glow of young brown dwarfs and newborn stars seen in this new image of IC 348. After selecting candidate brown dwarfs based on their colors and brightness, they followed up with Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) in 2025 to conduct spectroscopic observations to study the masses of the brown dwarfs.

These deep Webb observations revealed something remarkable to the researchers: brown dwarfs with masses as low as just twice the mass of Jupiter or only 0.19 percent of the Sun’s mass — far smaller than theory predicts brown dwarfs should be. These are the least massive brown dwarfs known and their existence poses a challenge to models of how stars form.

In addition to the discovery of these unexpectedly lightweight brown dwarfs, the Webb observations contained even more surprises. One of the lightest newfound brown dwarfs showed signs of a disk, suggesting that small planets could be forming around an object that is itself only the mass of a planet.

While inspecting the spectra of IC 348’s brown dwarfs, the research team also found a feature they attributed to an unidentified hydrocarbon — molecules made only of hydrogen and carbon atoms. This specific feature has only been seen in the atmospheres of the lowest-mass brown dwarfs, suggesting that these extreme objects might exist in a spectral class of their own.

The stars and brown dwarfs of IC 348 aren’t the only attractions in this image. A brilliantly detailed collection of protostars occupies the upper right corner. Several of these protostars are accompanied by Herbig-Haro objects, which are luminous regions that form when jets from growing newborn stars crash into the gas and dust around the star.

The long, narrow feature that is oriented horizontally in this corner is the Herbig-Haro object HH 797. Upon close inspection, this source is revealed to be two protostars with nearly parallel outflows. Just to the right of HH 797 is the propeller-shaped source HH 211, which features both narrow jets and broader outflows.

The data used to create this image comes from the Webb General Observer Program 4866. In addition to studying the lowest-mass objects created through the star-formation process, this program also seeks to understand how the populations of planetary-mass objects like brown dwarfs vary between star-forming regions, as well as the origins of the hydrocarbon feature in the lowest-mass brown dwarfs.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/News

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Last Updated: Sep 15, 2026
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

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Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
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laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

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ESA/Webb
Baltimore, Maryland

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Lion Nebula Roars to Life With NASA’s Webb

Lion Nebula (NIRCam and MIRI Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope imaged the planetary nebula NGC 2392, the Lion Nebula, using the observatory’s NIRCam and MIRI instruments. The central star’s remains are responsible for the nebula’s structure, including a lion face-shaped bubble of ionized gas and dust “mane.” Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Lion Nebula (MIRI Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared image of planetary nebula NGC 2392, nicknamed the Lion Nebula, highlights the varying dust structures. Some dust is being destroyed by the dying central star’s radiation, while some dust filaments manage to survive. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

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Observing across the starry “plains” of space, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has taken new images of NGC 2392, nicknamed the Lion Nebula. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope previously viewed this planetary nebula in 2000, imaging the lion face-shaped target in visible light and revealing features such as the “mane” of hazy, comet-shaped objects. Now Webb has captured a clearer, more detailed view of the Lion Nebula due to its high-resolution imaging.

At first glance the nebula’s overall structure in Webb’s infrared images, with both the NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid Infrared Instrument) instruments, may look quite similar to Hubble’s earlier visible-light view. However, Webb’s infrared vision highlights features like compact clumps of dust and a haze of ionized gas. It’s taken several thousand years for this collection of gas and dust to reach its current shape, and the nebula’s components continue to be altered.

The source of these constant changes and the reason for the Lion Nebula’s distinct appearance is located at the center: the remains of a dying star. Though it looks like the button nose of the lion, its energy and radiation are powering the intricate structures seen here.

Massive stars undergo supernova explosions at the end of their lives, but these kinds of events are few and far in between. Most of the universe’s stars have lower masses, like the one belonging to NGC 2392. When a lower-mass star can no longer sustain itself with nuclear reactions in its core, the star becomes unstable and pulsates, losing its mass by shedding its outer layers, which then turn into shells of gas and dust called a planetary nebula. (Stars at this life stage are responsible for producing much of the universe’s observable dust.) The star’s radiation drives the ejected material away, leaving behind the very hot stellar core, also known as a white dwarf.

In the Lion Nebula’s case, the death of the oxygen-rich central star has left behind a white dwarf that is “cooking” everything from the inside and producing a bubble of ionized gas as it does. The gas bubble, which forms the lion’s face, is expanding over time and destroying dust that is in its path. Understanding why the swept-up gas has a complex structure of rings and shells, a common feature in planetary nebulae, is an ongoing endeavor.

The mane of the lion is the interior of a dust shell that is being illuminated by the white dwarf at the center. The tufts of hair, which look like cometary tails of material, are compact clumps of dust that have survived the stellar core’s radiation and protect the material that lies behind them.

Webb’s imagery “freezes” this planetary nebula in time, though the star’s death, and its tumultuous effects, go on. NGC 2392 will continue to undergo changes as its gas and dust migrate away from the stellar core. Astronomers estimate the lion will eventually disperse in approximately 10,000 years — a relatively short period in astronomical terms.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/News

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Details:

Last Updated: Aug 10, 2026
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Contact Media:

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Abigail Major
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

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NASA Webb Explores Family Tree of Newly Discovered Distant Objects

Saguaro in GOODS-North Field (NIRCam)

Scientists have proposed one pathway little red dots can follow as the universe matures based on their analysis of spiral galaxy WISEA J123635.56+621424.2, nicknamed the “Saguaro.” They suggest little red dots may be a temporary phase of highly active supermassive black holes. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Pierluigi Rinaldi (Steward Observatory); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Little Red Dot at Redshift 2: Real and Simulated Graphic

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Scientists synthetically shifted the Saguaro, a lower-redshift spiral galaxy, to a higher redshift to find out how it would appear if it was in the early universe. Its compact red appearance suggests that little red dots are a phase of highly active supermassive black holes. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Pierluigi Rinaldi (Steward Observatory); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI); Illustration: Leah Hustak (STScI)

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Since their discovery by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in 2022, little red dots (LRDs) have been the subject of great interest to astronomers. Understanding the nature of these extremely distant, compact red sources has been a puzzling scientific endeavor.

One popular theory is that little red dots are supermassive black holes known as active galactic nuclei, although they display characteristics unlike nearby active galactic nuclei. While they appear abundant at high redshift early in the universe, they rapidly decrease in number at lower redshifts. (The higher the redshift, the greater the distance the light has traveled across the universe.) This perplexing shift in number raises the question: What happens to little red dots as the universe matures?

A team of researchers led by Pierluigi Rinaldi of the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory, now at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, has built upon their previous research in a new study published on July 29 in The Astrophysical Journal and proposed one pathway LRDs can follow as the universe ages: Though they may look like a unique galaxy population, these dots are affected by observational bias — some features just don’t appear at higher redshifts with current technology.

Their conclusions are based on their analysis of lower-redshift spiral galaxy WISEA J123635.56+621424.2, nicknamed the “Saguaro” for its prominent arms, like the cactus native to the Sonoran Desert in the Southwestern United States. A particularly intriguing feature of this redshift 2 galaxy, which corresponds to approximately 3.3 billion years after the big bang, is its little red dot-like center that is reminiscent of the ruby red fruit produced by the desert plant.

“Everything created in the early universe must evolve into something around us. We have had little idea of what LRDs become, but these results finally show us how to find their progeny,” said co-author George Rieke of the University of Arizona. Previous studies by NASA’s retired Spitzer Space Telescope provided the first hint of the dust-obscured, compact galaxy population in the lower-redshift universe that the Saguaro belongs to, paving the way for NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes’ high-resolution analyses.

“The Saguaro is important because it’s a prototypical little red dot and is one of the few we have found at lower redshift. It can be used to study the pathway of these dots throughout cosmic time,” said Fabio Pacucci of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a co-author of the study.

Among the thousands of sources Rinaldi looked at across several surveys, the Saguaro was an example of the right place — with one of Webb’s microshutter arrays perfectly framed over the galaxy’s core to take spectroscopic data — and right time — being at lower redshift. To get as broad a view of the spiral galaxy as possible across the electromagnetic spectrum, the team used Hubble’s ultraviolet- and Webb’s infrared-imaging and spectroscopic archival data, respectively.

“Because the Saguaro is at lower redshift, we can see the very beautiful and bright host galaxy in high resolution and detail with Webb and Hubble,” said Zihao Wu of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and a co-author of the study. “Webb’s observations can help us understand how the galaxy and its little red dot-like nucleus are connected.”

The team took multiple approaches to verify that the Saguaro’s compact red nucleus matched the characteristics of a prototypical LRD. In particular, the Hubble and Webb data showed that the nucleus is brighter in both ultraviolet and infrared light than in visible light, just like distant LRDs. The team also carefully disentangled the light emitted from the host and nucleus, and considered the presence of X-ray emission from the source.

Although the majority of little red dots at high redshift are not detectable in X-ray light, NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory detected weak X-ray emission from the Saguaro.

“What the X-ray light observations show is that this galaxy has an active galactic nucleus, and a very obscured one at that,” said Carys Gilbert, a Master’s student at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and a co-author of the paper. “It’s not only obscured but also X-ray weak. That kind of combination could explain the lack of X-ray emission that we see from all other little red dots. It fits the puzzle of little red dots nicely.”

In addition to demonstrating how the Saguaro’s central compact red source fits the little red dot criteria, the team synthetically shifted the galaxy to a higher redshift to explore how this galactic environment would appear to observers if located in the early universe. As expected, the Saguaro’s surrounding galactic structure fades so that only the bright, LRD-like source at its center is visible.

“Our theory is that most of these distant sources are affected by this cosmological effect, creating an observational bias,” said Rinaldi. “We simply are not able to sample the immediate environment of high-redshift little red dots because their surroundings are just too faint to be observed even with Webb. Little red dots are far more complex than just being a dot. They’re just the tip of the iceberg — of a supermassive black hole interacting with its nearby surroundings.”

Considering the Saguaro case study, the team believes that LRDs may not be a unique galaxy population, but instead a temporary phase of highly active supermassive black holes. Could this theory be the link between the populous high-redshift little red dots seen by Webb and the local universe?c While the Saguaro is not representative of all LRDs, the team proposes that this is one phase of these compact red sources. To build more confidence, further study of the Saguaro is necessary, as well as seeking other Saguaro-like galaxies at lower redshift. The team also intends to comb through Webb’s bountiful archival data to build a census of little red dots to study how their environments may impact how they mature. These different approaches are all geared to helping uncover the family tree of little red dots.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

The Hubble Space Telescope has been operating for over three decades and continues to make ground-breaking discoveries that shape our fundamental understanding of the universe. Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and ESA (European Space Agency). NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages the telescope and mission operations. Lockheed Martin Space, based in Denver, also supports mission operations at Goddard. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, conducts Hubble science operations for NASA.

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/News

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Details:

Last Updated: Jul 29, 2026
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Contact Media:

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Abigail Major
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

Hannah Braun
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

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NASA’s Webb Discovers Hidden Planet in Famous Star System

Beta Pictoris System (Artist's Concept)

This artist’s concept shows the Beta Pictoris system with the discovered giant exoplanet Beta Pictoris d at the right. It has the widest orbit of the known three exoplanets within the system. Credit Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

Beta Pictoris System (NIRSpec IFU Image and Spectrum)

Researchers used the NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) Integral Field Unit on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to map chemical contents of the Beta Pictoris system. As a result, they discovered a third planet, Beta Pictoris d, orbiting the young star. Credid Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Leah Hustak (STScI); Science: Aidan Gibbs (UC San Diego), Jean-Baptiste Ruffio (UC San Diego), Alexis Bidot (STScI); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Beta Pictoris System (NIRSpec IFU Image Annotated

The newly discovered third planet orbiting Beta Pictoris, Beta Pictoris d, is seen in reconstructed imagery from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph). Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Science: Aidan Gibbs (UC San Diego), Jean-Baptiste Ruffio (UC San Diego); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

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Astronomers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have discovered a giant planet outside our solar system, called an exoplanet, hiding within one of the most intensely studied planetary systems in our Milky Way galaxy.

The young, nearby star Beta Pictoris was already known to host two giant planets: Beta Pictoris b, one of the first exoplanets ever directly imaged, and Beta Pictoris c. The newly identified Beta Pictoris d makes it only the second planetary system known to contain at least three imaged planets. Unlike Beta Pictoris b and c, however, Beta Pictoris d was discovered not by identifying a bright point of light, but by detecting the unique chemical fingerprint of its atmosphere, a technique that could transform the search for worlds around other stars.

"This discovery adds another piece to an already fascinating planetary system," said Aidan Gibbs, lead author of a new study published Wednesday in the Astrophysical Journal Letters and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, San Diego. "Beta Pictoris has long served as a laboratory for understanding how planetary systems form and evolve, and now we have another planet helping us tell that story."

Familiar system, new surprise

Located 63 light-years from Earth and about 23 million years old, Beta Pictoris is a nearby system in the Milky Way offering a rare glimpse of the interactions between newborn planets and the disk of dust and debris left behind from their formation.

The team estimates that the newfound Beta Pictoris d is likely at least two times the mass of Jupiter, making it the smallest of the three known giant planets in the system. Modeling suggests it likely circles around its star at about 30 astronomical units, comparable to the region occupied by Neptune in our own solar system. It’s the widest orbit of the known three planets, but still located inside the inner edge of the debris disk.

Although astronomers were not searching for another planet with Webb, Beta Pictoris d emerged while the team was using the telescope’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) to study the atmosphere of Beta Pictoris b. Specifically, they used NIRSpec’s Integral Field Unit, which obtains both an image and a spectrum from each pixel in an image.

"We weren't looking for a new planet," said Gibbs. "We were trying to understand one we already knew existed. Then, this telltale signal appeared in the data where we didn’t expect it."

This signal was a series of peaks and troughs within the spectroscopic data where the team expected to see a smooth spectrum from light bouncing off dust. It was a distinctive pattern of carbon monoxide absorption lines, spread out like a barcode, an expected feature in giant planet atmospheres.

Because spectroscopy not only reveals chemical composition, but the motion of an object, the team was able to also extract radial velocity from the data. The team determined the planet’s speed, position, and alignment with the debris disk were all consistent with something orbiting Beta Pictoris rather than a background star or brown dwarf with carbon monoxide in its atmosphere.

"There was an unexpected bright source of light within the Integral Field Unit imaging, but we've learned not to trust bright blobs in images," said Jean-Baptiste Ruffio, a research scientist at University of California, San Diego and principal investigator of the first Webb observations where the discovery was made. "They can be instrumental artifacts or other structures in the debris disk. By obtaining a spectrum at the same time as the image, we were able to quickly confirm our suspicions.”

Follow-up observations with Webb's MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) through a Director’s Discretionary Time request detected water vapor and methane, further confirming the planet's identity while providing a richer look at the atmosphere of the planet.

Unlike traditional imaging, the spectroscopic approach allowed researchers to identify the planet and begin studying its atmosphere from the very first observation.

"A spectrum contains an incredible amount of information," Ruffio said. "You don't just learn that something is a planet; you immediately begin learning about its temperature, chemistry, and motion."

A separate imaging study led by Ben Sutlieff of the University of Edinburgh and Markus Bonse of the European Southern Observatory complements the team’s findings with data from the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope and Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and independently confirmed the existence of Beta Pictoris d.

Seeing through cosmic fog

Beta Pictoris d remained hidden for years because it lies within one of the brightest debris disks known.

The dusty disk acts like fog, scattering light from the star, making it difficult for conventional imaging techniques to distinguish planets from surrounding structures. The team's spectroscopic method with Webb effectively ignored that dust, isolating only the narrow molecular signatures unique to a planetary atmosphere.

Scientists say the planet’s presence may help explain why the famous debris disk has such a sharply defined inner edge and other puzzling structures. In fact, astronomers had already predicted the existence of a planet like Beta Pictoris d to account for the disk’s unusual structure.

Beyond expanding our understanding of Beta Pictoris, the discovery demonstrates a powerful new way to find exoplanets.

This is the first directly imaged planet discovered primarily through moderate-resolution spectroscopy, showing that astronomers can identify worlds in complex environments through their atmospheric fingerprints rather than relying solely on traditional coronagraphic imaging.

The researchers plan to continue analyzing Webb's observations to better determine the planet's temperature, atmospheric composition, and orbit, providing an even more detailed view of one of astronomy's most iconic planetary systems.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/Mission

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Details:

Last Updated: Jul 15, 2026
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Contact Media:

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

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NASA’s Webb Reveals Stars Sparking to Life in Cosmic Celebration

FS Tau (Webb Image)

In infrared light, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveals bright protostars in star system FS Tau and a tapestry of background galaxies. FS Tau B, the orange protostar slightly right of center, is thought to be responsible for the orange outflows amid the dusty region. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

FS Tau Side-by-Side (Webb and Hubble Image)

A comparison between the observations of FS Tau by NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes. Hubble’s visible-light view shows the star-forming region mostly obscured by thick dust. Webb sees through the dust, revealing how the protostars are shaping their surroundings. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

FS Tau (Webb Compass Image)

An image of FS Tau captured by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), with compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the infrared light of numerous features that previously were impossible to see beyond the thick dust of the FS Tau star system. In addition to myriad background galaxies that burst into view like fireworks for the United States’ 250th anniversary celebrations, this image flickers with a number of protostars, or baby stars that are formed from dense pockets of gas and dust. These hot, clumpy, and low-mass objects eventually will become full-fledged stars capable of burning hydrogen in their cores, like our Sun. The protostars of FS Tau are about 1 to 3 million years old, which is relatively young in cosmic scales. Our Sun, by contrast, is 4.6 billion years old.

Low-mass stars emit less radiation and have less energetic stellar winds than those with larger masses, which means they disrupt their environment at a much lower level. This makes the FS Tau region incredibly useful for studying low-mass star evolution without the same level of environmental interference seen near higher-mass stars. A pair of protostars that creates the largest diffraction pattern seen slightly to the left of center in the image, called FS Tau A, is about half the mass of our Sun.

Even though these objects are young and low-mass, they still can impact their surroundings, partially due to the outflows they emit. These outflows, seen as orange and red wisps and wide sheets, are theorized to come from FS Tau B, the protostar slightly to the right of center that has an orange diffraction pattern. As FS Tau B feeds on the surrounding dust and gas to grow, it ejects some of that matter outward. The wider outflows are thought to come from the interaction between the protostar’s magnetic field and superheated matter closest to the protostar within its accretion disk. The disk is seen as a dark band that cuts across at a 30-degree angle.

The gaps between the outflows, newly discovered in this Webb observation, add to growing evidence that protostars accrete matter in discrete episodes. In the periods where protostars gather material and increase in mass, they also eject superheated matter in different directions. In between these episodes, they are relatively quiet.

As protostars eject these outflows, they shape their surroundings. This is best shown by the prominent light-blue ridges of dust and gas near FS Tau B. These thicker regions were likely created as outflows struck and compressed matter together. The brightness of these light-blue ridges shows that the nearby protostar’s light is reflected. Moreover, Webb’s sensitivity reveals the varying textures of dust and gas across the entire region.

The range of colors seen in this observation also provides a wealth of information, specifically about where dust is and how much of it obscures the region. Light with bluer wavelengths is absorbed and scattered by dust, while redder-wavelength light is able to slip through. Therefore, background galaxies behind thicker foreground dust appear redder. Alternatively, yellow galaxies have much less dust obscuring them. The few white stars visible in this image are likely in the foreground.

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/Latest News

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Details:

Last Updated: Jul 02, 2026
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Contact Media:

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Matthew Brown
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

Abigail Major
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

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NASA’s Webb Studies How Planet Survived Death of its Star

Exoplanet WD 1856 b (Artist's Concept)

Exoplanet WD 1856 b, shown in this artist’s concept, is a gas giant that orbits its star at a distance 50 times closer than Earth orbits the Sun. Observations by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope determined the planet’s temperature and detected molecules in its atmosphere. Credit Artwork: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)

Exoplanet WD 1856 b (Transmission Spectrum)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope measured the constituents of exoplanet WD 1856 b as it passed in front of its star, finding signs of methane. WD 1856 b orbits a white dwarf star the size of Earth. As a result, the planet blocks more than half of the star’s light. Credit Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is giving us new insight into the far-future of solar systems like our own, as the agency continues to reveal the secrets of the universe and our place in it. Billions of years ago, a Sun-like star nearing the end of its life swelled tremendously in size to become a red giant before ejecting its outer layers, leaving a hot, remnant core known as a white dwarf. As a red giant, the star should have engulfed and destroyed any nearby planets. Yet astronomers have found a Jupiter-sized exoplanet orbiting the white dwarf every 34 hours at a separation of less than 2 million miles (3 million kilometers).

To solve the mystery of how this exoplanet survived, an international team of astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to watch the Jupiter-sized exoplanet WD 1856 b transit its host star, measuring the planet’s temperature and detecting molecules in its atmosphere. They found the planet is significantly warmer than expected and determined how it most likely reached its very tight orbit around the white dwarf star. The results are a window into the future of planets like Jupiter after the death of the Sun, billions of years into the future.

The results published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

WD 1856 b was discovered in 2020 by scientists using NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) and the retired Spitzer Space Telescope. It orbits the white dwarf WD 1856+534, which is located about 80 light-years from Earth. “The planet is about the size of Jupiter, but the white dwarf it orbits is the size of Earth, so the planet is seven times larger than its star," said lead author Ryan MacDonald of the University of St. Andrews in the United Kingdom.

WD 1856 b orbits extremely close to its host star, a distance 50 times closer than Earth orbits the Sun. If WD 1856 b had originally been orbiting at that distance, it would have been obliterated while the star was a red giant. How did it survive the death of its host star and end up in its current position?

How big, how hot

The new study used Webb to watch the planet passing in front of its star. This transit yielded unique information about the planet’s mass, which is between four and eleven times the mass of Jupiter.

The team also was able to determine the planet’s temperature. During the transit, light from the star was partly blocked, but infrared light was reduced less than other wavelengths. The difference was infrared light emitted by the planet from its own heat. The data indicated that the planet has a temperature of about 260 degrees Fahrenheit (126 degrees Celsius) — significantly hotter than it would be if its only source of heat was the light from the white dwarf. This puzzling discovery turned out to be the key fact that proved how the planet must have reached its current orbit.

Christopher O’Connor of Northwestern University in Illinois, a co-author on the paper, was responsible for tracing the temperature of the planet back in time. O’Connor said, “The big question is how WD 1856 b ended up where it is today, and there are two theories. One is that the planet was swallowed by the host star as it was dying, and managed to survive on the inside. The other is that migration took place due to the gravitational effect of other objects in the system. The white dwarf is part of a triple star system, and the companion stars could have influenced WD 1856 b’s orbit.”

The researchers realized that there was no source of energy present to generate that heat today, so it must be residual energy from an earlier time when the planet was heated. Using models of how sub-stellar objects like WD 1856 b cool down over time, coupled with the new data from Webb, the team was able to project its temperature back in time and deduce how long ago the heating must have happened. The timing is key to determining whether the heating was from being engulfed by the red giant or occurred during an inward migration.

They concluded that the heating most likely happened between 3 and 5.5 billion years after the star became a white dwarf. In this scenario, the planet was on a wide orbit that kept it safe from the star during its destructive red giant phase, and only migrated to its present location later on. “As the planet moved inward, its interactions with the strong gravity of the white dwarf will have caused it to warm up considerably, and it has been cooling ever since,” said O’Connor.

Light from the star passing through the planet’s atmosphere also picked up information about its chemical composition. “We saw the telltale signatures of small cloud particles and hydrocarbons, most likely methane, which is the first time we have seen an atmosphere on a planet transiting a dead star,” said co-author Victoria Boehm of Cornell University. “We recently observed four more transits of WD 1856 b with Webb to take a deeper look into its atmospheric chemistry and can’t wait to see the results.”

Solar system’s possible future

In approximately five billion years, the Sun will run out of hydrogen fuel in its core and swell up more than 100 times larger than it is now into a red giant star. It will then shed its outer layers and end its life as a white dwarf star. Mercury, Venus, and possibly the Earth will be destroyed by the red giant. However, the fate of the more distant planets, particularly the gas giants, is unclear. Finding and studying planets in orbit around the remnants of Sun-like stars after their death is a means of learning what might happen in our own solar system in the far future.

“We’re used to looking back in time when we use telescopes, but this is the first time we have been able to look forward to what might happen to the outer planets around the remnant of a Sun-like star,” said MacDonald. “It’s like using a time machine to peer into the distant future of our solar system.”

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/News

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Details:

Last Updated: Jul 01, 2026
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Contact Media:

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Bethany Downer
ESA/Webb
Baltimore, Maryland
Christine Pulliam Space Telescope Science Institute Baltimore, Maryland

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NASA’s Webb Pinpoints Millions of Stars Within Cigar Galaxy

M82 Cigar Galaxy (Webb + Hubble)

Scientists used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to image edge-on starburst galaxy Messier 82 and trace its evolutionary history. This Webb and Hubble composite image includes 16.5 million stars (blue-white), dust grains (red-orange), and ionized hydrogen gas (yellow). Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Adam Smercina (STScI, Tufts), Thomas Williams (University of Manchester); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

M82 Cigar Galaxy (NIRCam Image)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope observed edge-on starburst galaxy Messier 82, peering through dust to reveal 16.5 million stars and the galaxy’s distended disk structure. Scientists seek to learn the galaxy’s evolutionary history with the Webb data. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Adam Smercina (STScI, Tufts), Thomas Williams (University of Manchester); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

M82 Cigar Galaxy (Hubble/Webb Side-by-Side)

Side-by-side comparison of a portion of starburst galaxy Messier 82 (M82) as seen by NASA’s Hubble (left) and James Webb (right) space telescopes. Hubble detailed M82’s gas and dust structure, while Webb pierced through the dust and resolved millions of stars in infrared light. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Adam Smercina (STScI, Tufts), Thomas Williams (University of Manchester); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

M82 Cigar Galaxy (Compass Image)

Annotated image of the starburst galaxy Messier 82 captured by Webb's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument, with compass arrows, a scale bar, and color key for reference. Credit Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, Adam Smercina (STScI, Tufts), Thomas Williams (University of Manchester); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

M82 Cigar Galaxy (Webb + Hubble Fade)

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared observation of M82 is the most recent addition to overall data on this starburst galaxy. The Hubble Space Telescope is one observatory that has previously looked at M82, detailing the gas and dust structure seen in visible light. Credit Video: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

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Located 12 million light-years away and undergoing rapid star formation, edge-on spiral galaxy Messier 82 (M82) is a scientifically unique sight to behold, and now NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has revealed previously unseen details.

M82’s intense star formation, thought to be the result of a galaxy merger, will be a short-lived event in astronomical terms, estimated to last a few hundred million years in its entirety. This temporary phase of extreme star formation relative to the galaxy’s mass, as well as its location in the local universe, are among the factors that make M82, also known as the Cigar galaxy, a one-of-a-kind environment to study.

A team of astronomers recently completed an imaging survey with the Webb telescope. This program entailed a total of 65 hours of observation time with Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument and revealed never-seen-before details of the starburst galaxy, including its distended disk structure and millions of individual stars. Webb’s high-resolution imaging, specifically of the main plane of the galactic disk, has unlocked vital information for astronomers as they seek to uncover M82’s formation history. Additionally, the Webb data will help scientists understand the current processes occurring within the starburst galaxy.

“M82 is a mess, but it’s a beautiful mess. We don’t fully understand what’s going on, especially concerning its evolutionary history. What could have triggered such an elevated rate of star formation? How long has this galaxy been driving plumes of material away from its center?” said principal investigator Adam Smercina, a NASA Hubble Fellow at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, and incoming Assistant Professor at Tufts University in Massachusetts. “M82 is an ideal galaxy evolution laboratory because it has properties that allow us to probe important physical processes, such as how stars form in such environments and how that activity drives outflows. M82 provides a simultaneous window onto many astrophysical questions, in a way that no other galaxy in the local universe can.”

Prior to Webb, many observatories looked at the starburst galaxy, including NASA’s Hubble and retired Spitzer space telescopes. However, the sheer volume of dust within that galaxy limited the amount of information astronomers could acquire on M82 at high resolution. While Webb has previously looked at this galaxy, the duration of the new imaging survey, combined with the telescope’s infrared sensitivity, enabled it to pierce through the thick dust.

The telescope’s near-infrared-light view is a snapshot of a scene that has been evolving over a couple hundred million years. Webb’s image contains approximately 16.5 million individual stars dispersed throughout the galaxy. The light from these stellar sources is depicted as luminous blue granules. This is only a small portion of the total amount of stars astronomers think reside in a galaxy like M82, with the majority too faint to be seen.

“The sheer number of stars that we were able to resolve with Webb is incredible,” said team member Benjamin Williams of the University of Washington. “It’s a whole different world from what we’ve been able to see with other telescopes. All of these stars collectively provide a detailed fossil record of the formation and evolution of M82.”

Moving inward, the increase in brightness and the asymmetrical shape of the galactic disk hints at the spiral galaxy’s unique underlying structure. The differing radii between the two sides suggests that M82 has a distorted shape, which can happen during intense galaxy mergers.

“At first glance, the disk of the galaxy may seem less spectacular because Webb sees through the dust,” said team member Eric Bell of the University of Michigan. “But M82 is a delightfully complex system. Webb’s observations will help us address some ongoing mysteries, such as how star formation has moved within M82 over the last few billion years.”

Because of the extreme star formation within the galaxy, which is 10 times faster than the Milky Way galaxy’s star formation rate, stellar birth will eventually be disrupted. M82’s stellar frenzy is causing bipolar plumes of material to be ejected above and below the disk. Though it looks like a tumultuous region, the hourglass-shaped outflows appear to have a layered structure. The yellow tendrils of material closest to the galaxy’s disk represent ionized gas, whereas the orange material farther away depicts small dust grains. These grains are called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and are helpful in tracing material in the space between the galaxy’s stars, also known as the interstellar medium.

The information collected as part of this Webb study is just one dataset scientists will analyze as they seek to piece together this starburst galaxy’s formation history.

“Galaxies are such intricate ecosystems that if you truly want to understand them, you have to pull datasets from different missions together,” said team member Kristen McQuinn of the Space Telescope Science Institute. “One mission cannot fully answer all of the questions we have about M82. Combining the data collected by different telescopes, like Webb and Hubble, is powerful. When you marry the datasets, you expand what you can probe, and the questions that you can pose are even more complex.”

The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).

Source: NASA's James Webb Space Telescope/Latest News

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Details:

Last Updated: Jun 23, 2026
Location: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

Contact Media:

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Abigail Major
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

Christine Pulliam
Space Telescope Science Institute
Baltimore, Maryland

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