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A stunning new image<\/a> captured by the James Webb Space Telescope shows a nearby galaxy bursting with light at its center, revealing the distinct but optically invisible structure that underpins the sprawling realm.<\/p>\n Known as Messier 77, or the Squid Galaxy, it\u2019s located in the constellation Cetus some 45 million light-years from Earth. Like our own Milky Way, it takes the form of a barred spiral galaxy, but its center is far more luminous. That\u2019s because it\u2019s dominated by an active galactic nucleus, a term that describes a supermassive black hole<\/a> in the midst of a voracious feeding frenzy. At eight million times the mass of the Sun, the black hole is pulling matter towards itself, which begins to swirl around it like water circling a drain, and heating up in the process. That heat is so intense, and the amount of matter captured so enormous, that the light the black hole\u2019s so-called accretion disk produces outshines the entire surrounding galaxy.\u00a0<\/p>\n By contrast, our milky way\u2019s supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*, is nowhere near as attention-grabbing. While it\u2019s also surrounded by an accretion disk, it isn\u2019t devouring enough matter to be considered an active galactic nucleus.<\/p>\n \ud83c\udd95 Our ESA\/Webb Picture of the Month catches a beacon of light in swirls of dust \ud83c\udf00<\/p>\n The barred spiral galaxy Messier 77 (M77) lies 45 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus \ud83d\udc0b. This new image from Webb\u2019s #MIRI<\/a> highlights the galaxy\u2019s piercingly bright core. 1\/3 pic.twitter.com\/2tHUwKDM0D<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 ESA Webb Telescope (@ESA_Webb) May 7, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n The new image, taken with Webb\u2019s Mid-Infrared Instrument, also reveals something invisible in optical wavelengths: the Squid Galaxy\u2019s central bar. This is a distinctly straight region, packed with stars, that bisects the outer spiral arms. The Squid Galaxy\u2019s bar is surrounded by a bright band called a starburst ring, where star formation is off the charts.<\/p>\n Feeding the black hole\u2019s appetite and star formation alike is the galaxy\u2019s preponderance of gas and dust, which the Webb\u2019s MIRI instrument is well-suited to peer through. The cooler dust grains that fill out the galaxy beyond its luminous center are colored in blue.<\/p>\n The most striking feature in the image are bright orange lines that explode from the galaxy\u2019s center. These are called diffraction spikes, and are a byproduct of the lens technique used to image the galaxy \u2014 not actual giant galactic spokes.<\/p>\n Because the Squid Galaxy is relatively close by for a major galaxy \u2014 the closest is the Andromeda galaxy at two million light years away, though a number of smaller dwarf galaxies are just tens of thousands of light years away \u2014 and because we can see it face-on, it\u2019s one the best studied cosmic realms out there.<\/p>\n But it still packs a few mysteries. Astronomers remain puzzled why its black hole barely seems to emit any gamma rays, for instance, which is typically a reliable telltale of these cosmic objects \u2014 but does emit an unusually high amount<\/a> of \u201cghost particles\u201d called neutrinos.<\/p>\n More on space: NASA Says Strange Red Dots in Sky Are an Unknown Class of Object That Looks Like a Huge Evil Eye<\/a><\/p>\n \t