Webb Reveals Dust and Stars in NGC 5134

Stars peek through the dusty, winding arms of NGC 5134, a spiral galaxy 65 million light-years away, in a Feb. 20, 2026, image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument maps the mid-infrared glow of warm dust, revealing clumps and strands of dusty gas, while the telescope’s Near Infrared Camera captures shorter-wavelength near-infrared light from the stars and star clusters that dot the galaxy’s spiral arms.

Studying nearby galaxies like NGC 5134 with Webb lets astronomers see stars and gas in detail and apply that understanding to much more distant galaxies that appear in the background of the image as faint points of light.

james webb, ngc 5134, spiral galaxy, mid-infrared, near-infrared, warm dust, dusty arms, star clusters, astronomers, distant galaxies