English: Face-on spiral galaxy, NGC 1087.

In Hubble’s images, the gas and dust show up as hazy dark brown lanes, following the same spiral shapes. Its images are about the same resolution as Webb’s, but the gas and dust obscure a lot of the smaller-scale star formation. The cores of Hubble’s image may appear yellow, washing the central region in a soft glow and fully obscuring individual points of light. Hazy brown dust lanes may also cover part of this area. In Hubble’s images, older stars are emitting some of the longest wavelengths of visible light Hubble captures, which is why the color assignments are different. (Compare the wavelengths of light Hubble and Webb observe.) In Hubble’s images, younger stars pop out in blue and purple – and appear almost everywhere. In contrast, the older stars near the center of the galaxy appear yellowish. In Hubble’s images, star-forming regions are clusters of bright blue and purple, or sometimes red and pink as hot stars energize nearby hydrogen gas. Galaxy NGC 1087 was observed as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) program, a large project that includes observations from several space- and ground-based telescopes of many galaxies to help researchers study all phases of the star formation cycle, from the formation of stars within dusty gas clouds to the energy released in the process that creates the intricate structures revealed by Webb’s new images. NGC 1087 is 50 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus.

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Janice Lee (STScI), Thomas Williams (Oxford), Rupali Chandar (UToledo), PHANGS Team