A brightly gleaming galaxy streaked with dramatic dust lanes and glittering pockets of star formation is more than just a pretty face.
The Squid Galaxy – formally known as M77 or NGC 1068 – is the prototype galaxy of its kind, with a supermassive black hole blazing hungrily at its core.
Because this galaxy is so close to the Milky Way – about 35 million light-years away – and because it's so bright, with its broadside directly facing us, it offers an excellent laboratory for understanding the wild dynamics of an active galactic nucleus.
There's just one problem. The Squid Galaxy is d-u-s-t-y, and its center even more so. That means peering into its heart to see the engine driving it is extremely tricky.
Fortuitously, this is exactly the sort of thing JWST was designed to do.
