Webb Uncovers Dust-Shrouded Heart of Centaurus A After Galaxy Clash

The James Webb Space Telescope has uncovered the dust-shrouded heart of Centaurus A after the galaxy clashed with another roughly 2 billion years ago, NASA said on July 6, 2026. The galaxy is 11 million light-years away from Earth. A supermassive black hole sits at its core actively feeding on surrounding material and launching powerful jets. Observations in near and mid infrared wavelengths with NIRCam and MIRI cut through thick lanes of dust that obscure the center in visible light revealing a densely packed field of individual stars and intricate dust structures including a warped parallelogram like band cutting across the galaxy center and an S shaped feature. Visible light observations from the Hubble Space Telescope could not reveal the central region due to dust while the retired Spitzer Space Telescope revealed large scale structures in the infrared without resolving individual stars. The views allow astronomers to study Centaurus A star by star to reconstruct its evolutionary timeline including a burst of star formation during the collision. Spectroscopy shows fast moving ionized gas flowing outward likely driven by the black hole activity and warmer molecular hydrogen in a warped rotating disk near the center.