NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged the Sombrero Galaxy with its NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), which shows dust from the galaxy’s outer ring blocking stellar light from stars within the galaxy. In the central region of the galaxy, the roughly 2,000 globular clusters, or collections of hundreds of thousands of old stars held together by gravity, glow in the near-infrared. The Sombrero Galaxy is around 30 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. From Earth, we see this galaxy nearly “edge-on,” or from the side.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
After capturing an image of the iconic Sombrero galaxy at mid-infrared wavelengths in late 2024, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has now followed up with an observation in the near-infrared. In the newest image, released on June 3, 2025, the Sombrero galaxy’s tightly packed group of stars at the galaxy’s center is illuminated while the dust in the outer edges of the disk blocks some stellar light. Studying galaxies like the Sombrero at different wavelengths, including the near-infrared and mid-infrared with Webb, as well as the visible with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, helps astronomers understand how this complex system of stars, dust, and gas formed and evolved, along with the interplay of that material.
Learn more about the Sombrero galaxy and what this new view can tell us.
Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
美国国家航空航天局（NASA）的詹姆斯·韦伯太空望远镜近期使用近红外相机（NIRCam）拍摄了著名的草帽星系（Sombrero Galaxy），图像中显示该星系外环的尘埃遮挡了星系内部恒星发出的光。在星系的中心区域，大约有2,000个球状星团——这些由数十万颗老年恒星通过引力聚集而成的星团——在近红外波段中熠熠生辉。草帽星系位于室女座，距离地球约3,000万光年。从地球上望去，我们几乎是从“侧面”观察这一星系，也就是所谓的边缘视角。
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
继2024年下旬在中红外波段捕捉到草帽星系的图像后，詹姆斯·韦布太空望远镜又于2025年6月3日发布了其最新的近红外观测图像。图像中，星系中央致密的恒星群格外明亮，而星系外围盘状结构中的尘埃则部分遮蔽了恒星光芒。通过韦布望远镜在近红外和中红外波段的观测，以及哈勃太空望远镜在可见光波段的观测，天文学家可以更深入地了解这类复杂星系系统中恒星、尘埃与气体是如何形成、演化并相互作用的。
了解更多关于草帽星系的信息，以及这项新观测为我们揭示了什么。
图片来源: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
