This detailed image produced by Webb’s powerful infrared gaze revealed new details about star formation and the galaxy’s central black hole. It shows how the Cartwheel Galaxy has changed over billions of years. The wheelbarrow galaxy, as shown in the image, looks like a wagon wheel. Its appearance results from an intense event – a high-speed collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy (not visible in this image). NASA officials said, “Collisions of galactic proportions cause a cascade of different, smaller events between the galaxies involved. Cartwheel is no exception.” The galaxy contains two rings: a bright inner ring and a surrounding, colorful ring. Both rings extend outward from the center of the collision, like ripples in a pond after a stone is thrown into it. Because of these fascinating features of the galaxy, this galaxy is also known as the ring galaxy. Huge young star clusters are seen in the brightest regions of the core, which also contains a huge amount of hot material. On the other hand, star formation and supernovae dominate the outer ring, which has been growing for nearly 440 million years. As it grows, this ring collides with the surrounding gas, causing star formation. Other telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, have previously looked at Cartwheel. But the dramatic galaxy has been shrouded in mystery – perhaps literally, given the amount of dust obscuring the view. Webb, with its ability to detect infrared light, is now revealing new insights into the nature of Cartwheel. This image from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) shows a group of galaxies, including a large distorted ring-shaped galaxy known as the Cartwheel. The Cartwheel Galaxy, located 500 million light-years away in the constellation Sculptor, consists of a bright inner ring and an active outer ring. While this outer ring has a lot of star formation, the dusty region in between reveals many stars and star clusters. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team NASA said, “The Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), Webb’s primary imager, looks into the near-infrared region from 0.6 to 5 microns, seeing critical wavelengths of light that can reveal even more stars than observed in visible light. This is because young stars, many of which form in the outer ring, are less obscured by the presence of dust when viewed in infrared light. In this image, the NIRCam data are colored blue, orange, and yellow. The galaxy shows many blue dots, single stars or pockets of star formation. NIRCam also reveals the difference between the smooth distribution or shape of the oldest star populations and dense dust in the core compared to the lumpy shapes associated with the younger star populations outside it.” “However, learning finer details about the dust that inhabits the galaxy requires the Webb Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The MIRI data are colored red in this composite image. It reveals regions within the Cartwheel Galaxy rich in hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds, as well as silica dust, just like much of the dust on Earth. These regions form a series of spiral rays that essentially form the skeleton of the galaxy. These rays are evident in previous Hubble observations released in 2018, but they become much more apparent in this Webb image.”