M77 is not just known for its easily visible AGN, but also as a prolific star-forming galaxy. The near-infrared image of M77 reveals a bar spanning across the central region, which doesn’t appear in visible-light images of the galaxy. The bar is enclosed by a bright ring, called a starburst ring, formed by the inner ends of M77’s two spiral arms. Starburst regions in galaxies are typified by extremely high star-formation rates. This ring is more than 6000 light-years across and displays intense and widespread starbursts, visible in this image by the densely concentrated orange bubbles all around the ring. Since M77 is relatively close to Earth, this starburst ring is a very well-studied example of the phenomenon.

As an active spiral galaxy, M77’s disc is filled with gas and dust which is both a product of and fuel for future star formation. Webb’s MIRI fills out our view of the galaxy with the glow of interstellar dust grains emitted at longer wavelengths, shown here in blue. The dust forms a huge vortex of smoky, swirling filaments with cavities in between. The glowing orange bubbles carved out by newly formed star clusters are also prominently visible out along the galaxy’s arms.

Beyond Webb’s quite focused view, M77’s arms join into a faint extended ring of hydrogen gas thousands of light-years wide, where yet more star formation is taking place. Vast, tenuous filaments of hydrogen gas stretch across this ring and out into intergalactic space, forming an outermost layer around the galaxy. For the tentacle-like appearance of these filaments, M77 is also named the Squid Galaxy.

The data used to create this image are from an observing programme (#3707) that surveyed massive, nearby, star-forming galaxies to create a rich dataset useful for many scientific investigations. As can be seen here, the stunning resolution of Webb’s instruments reveals star clusters and rich reservoirs of gas, which can be used to explore the cycle of star formation, life and death in these and other galaxies.