Spectacular View of Active Galactic Nucleus by JWST

Some thoughts on perception in Astronomy, part 1

Enhanced color image showing the core and eastern arc of the barred-spiral galaxy NGC-1365. Star forming regions in red to the left (east). The green spot at the center is the location of the black hole and active galactic nucleus. Clicking the image will open the full resolution version. Image data: JWST/NASA/GSFC, processing and production: the author.

Back in 2009 during the International year of Astronomy, NASA took the opportunity to celebrate its Great Observatories Program. This program is a semiformal grouping of four orbiting observatories with separate origins: the Hubble Space Telescope, the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope, the final mission in NASA's Great Observatories Program. JWST has now taken the place of the vaunted Spitzer Space Telescope as an Infrared observing platform.

Each observes the universe in disparate regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. In doing so, we observe the cosmos with a distinctly d…