PHANGS-JWST First Results: Massive Young Star Clusters and New Insights from JWST Observations of NGC 1365

Understand

A primary new capability of JWST is the ability to penetrate the dust in star forming galaxies to identify and study the properties of young star clusters that remain embedded in dust and gas.

• In this paper we combine new infrared images taken with JWST with our optical HST images of the star-bursting barred (Seyfert2) spiral galaxy NGC 1365.
• We find that this galaxy has the richest population of massive young clusters of any known galaxy within 30 Mpc, with $\sim$ 30 star clusters that are more massive than 10$^6$ Msolar and younger than 10 Myr.
• Sixteen of these clusters are newly discovered from our JWST observations.