black hole<\/a> eight million times as massive as our Sun.<\/p>\nAs material is sucked into a tight, rapid orbit by the black hole\u2019s gravity, it generates friction and heats up, releasing a brilliant light that outshines the rest of the galaxy.<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/webb-m77-galaxy-black-hole.jpg\")
An image of spiral galaxy M77 and its central supermassive black hole, an active galactic nucleus, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument. Credit: ESA\/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy
\nWebb’s view of the M77 black hole<\/p>\n
The image above was produced using Webb\u2019s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to reveal the swirling spiral arms and the dust in the galaxy’s disc.<\/p>\n
The bright orange lines radiating from the centre are not physical parts of the galaxy; they are diffraction spikes.<\/p>\n
These occur when intense light from a concentrated source\u2014like this AGN\u2014is bent at the edges of Webb\u2019s hexagonal mirrors.<\/p>\n
Below is another image of Messier 77, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Camera<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/messier-77-nircam.jpg\")
An image of galaxy M77 captured by the James Webb Space Telescope\u2019s Near-Infrared Camera. Credit: ESA\/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Leroy
\nA factory for star formation<\/p>\n
M77 is aso a prolific star-forming galaxy. Webb\u2019s near-infrared data reveals a central bar enclosed by a starburst ring.<\/p>\n
This ring, spanning more than 6,000 light-years, is visible as a collection of densely concentrated orange bubbles.<\/p>\n
These bubbles represent regions with extremely high star-formation rates.<\/p>\n
Beyond the bright core, Webb\u2019s MIRI has captured the glow of interstellar dust grains, shown in blue.<\/p>\n
This dust forms a vast vortex of smoky, swirling filaments. Farther out, the galaxy\u2019s arms join an extended ring of hydrogen gas.<\/p>\n
Because of the tentacle-like appearance of these outer gas filaments, M77 has earned the nickname the Squid Galaxy.<\/p>\n
Data from this observation is part of a Webb programme surveying massive, nearby galaxies.<\/p>\n
The high resolution of Webb\u2019s instruments allows astronomers to see star clusters and gas reservoirs in incredible detail, helping them explore the cycle of star formation, life and death across the Universe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At the centre of galaxy Messier 77 lies a cosmic behemoth glowing so intensely, it outshines its entire…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":["post-466074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/webb-phantom-galaxy-39945e2.jpeg\")
James Webb Space Telescope view of the Phantom Galaxy, M74. Credit: ESA\/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST Team. Acknowledgement: J. Schmidt<\/p>\n