Friday, November 18, 2022

L1527 and Protostar

An hourglass-shaped, multi-color cloud set against the black, starry background of space. This cloud of dust and gas is illuminated by light from a protostar, a star in the earliest stages of formation. The upper “bulb” of the hourglass is orange, while the lower “bulb” transitions from white to dark blue. Together, the two bulbs stretch out like butterfly wings turned 90 degrees to the side. Extending from the upper and lower bulbs are long, wispy filaments of color, looking almost like burning fire. In the center of the hourglass shape is a small, dark demarcation line. This line is an edge-on view of a protoplanetary disk, a disk of material being pulled into a star as it forms.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI


Tuesday, November 15, 2022

IC 1623

Webb’s image shows two galaxies appearing to swirl together into a blue and pink mass. Long, blue spiral arms stretch vertically, faint at the edges. Tendrils of hot gas spread horizontally over the blue arms, mainly bright coral pink with many small gold spots of star formation. The center of these merging galaxies is extremely bright, radiating eight large, golden diffraction spikes. The background is black, with many tiny galaxies in orange and blue.
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Armus & A. Evans

Tuesday, October 25, 2022

M16 (NGC 6611) - Pillars of Creation

This Webb image of the “Pillars of Creation” has layers of semi-opaque, rusty red gas and dust that start at the bottom left and go toward the top right. There are three prominent pillars rising toward the top right. The left pillar is the largest and widest. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of brown and have red outlines. Peeking through the layers of gas and dust is the background, set in shades of blue and littered with tiny yellow and blue stars. Many of the tips of the pillars appear tinged with what looks like lava. There are also tiny red dots at the edges of the pillars, which are newly born stars.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

At left, Hubble’s visible-light view shows darker pillars that rise from the bottom to the top of the screen, ending in three points. The background is opaque, set off in yellow and green toward the bottom and blue and purple at the top. A handful of stars of various sizes appear. Webb’s near-infrared image at right shows the same pillars, but they are semi-opaque and rusty red-colored. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of brown and have red outlines. The background is cast in darker blues and blacks, and stars in yellow and white of all sizes speckle the entire scene.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI (Hubble and Webb Slide Tool)

Three prominent pillars of semi-opaque gas and dust, each in spectral shades of gray-blue, start at the bottom left and reach toward the top right. From left to right, each pillar is consecutively smaller. Together, they appear like a ghostly hand. Towards the top of the leftmost pillar, there is one prominent red star, with tiny spikes at its tip. Lower on this pillar, there are several darker areas of dust that jut out like protrusions, some also with stars that appear as small red dots. The other two pillars are below and to the right of the first pillar. The background of this scene takes on glowing shades of orange-red mixed with black, with the strongest bright orange hues dipping into a V shape at the top center of the image. Scattered throughout the image are a few dozen tiny bright white and blue stars. Larger stars appear like red orbs and are embedded in the pillars.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI (MIRI and NIRCam Slider Tool)

Webb Telescope's Image of the Pillars of Creation
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Ant_H.

JWST Image of the Pillars of Creation
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, u/DatSexyFoxx

Credit: Space Telescope Science Institute
Credit: Grant Tremblay
Credit: Mark McCaughrean


Credit: AAS WorldWide Telescope Pillars of Creation

Wednesday, October 12, 2022

Circumstellar Disk Orion 294-606

A JWST image of the edge-on circumstellar disk Orion 294-606 seen silhouetted against the bright background light of the Orion Nebula.
A tiny snippet of JWST data, showing a planetary system in the making, floating in space & silhouetted against the bright background light of the Orion Nebula.
Credit: JWST NIRCam F187N filter (Paschen-a), McCaughrean & Pearson

Tuesday, October 11, 2022

VV 191 Galaxy Pair

The background of this Webb and Hubble composite image of galaxy pair VV 191 is black. Two large, very bright galaxies dominate the center of the image. The elliptical galaxy at left is extremely bright at its circular core, with dimmer white light extending to its transparent circular edges. At right is a bright spiral galaxy. It also has a bright white core, but has red and light purple spiral arms that start at the center and turn clockwise going outward. They end in faint red and appear to overlap the elliptical galaxy at left. Throughout the scene are a range of distant galaxies, the majority of which are very tiny and red, appearing as splotches.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, R. Windhorst (Arizona State University), W. Keel (University of Alabama), S. Wyithe (University of Melbourne, Australia), and the JWST PEARLS Team

Monday, October 10, 2022

IC 5332

Image of galaxy IC 5332 as taken by the Webb telescope’s MIRI instrument, resembling gray cobwebs in the shape of a spiral. These “cobwebs” are patterns of gas spread throughout the galaxy. The core of the galaxy glows a dark blue. Stars, seen as tiny blue dots, are scattered throughout the image. There are also sparser, larger red dots spread out among the spiral arms. The background of the image is dark.
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, J. Lee and the PHANGS-JWST and PHANGS-HST Teams

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Neptune

In this Webb image, Neptune resembles a pearl with rings that look like ethereal concentric ovals around it. There are 2 thinner, crisper rings and 2 broader, fainter rings. A few extremely bright patches on the lower half of Neptune represent methane ice clouds. Six tiny white dots, which are six of Neptune’s 14 moons, are scattered among the rings. The background of the image is black.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

This is a zoomed out view of Neptune, its rings and its moons as captured by Webb. Neptune’s moon Triton, resembling a small teal snowflake, is the central focal point, with a tiny ringed, pearl-like Neptune below and to the right of it. The black background is filled with galaxies, 8-pointed bright objects and dots. A small white spiral galaxy in the bottom left corner is particularly visible.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI

From left to right, the first is labeled as taken by Voyager 2 in 1989. It’s a dark blue sphere with some pale blue or white streaks against a black background. The second is labeled as taken by Hubble in 2021. It’s a fuzzier and paler blue sphere also set against a black background. The third is labeled as taken by Webb in 2022. As seen in infrared light, Neptune resembles a pearl with thin, concentric oval rings.
Credit: Voyager: NASA/JPL-Caltech, Hubble: NASA, ESA, A. Simon (Goddard Space Flight Center), and M.H. Wong (University of California, Berkeley) and the OPAL team, Webb: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

Neptune system with some moons and rings annotated (Triton and Proteus are outside this field).
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI and Dr Heidi B. Hammel


Wednesday, September 7, 2022

NGC 2070, 30 Doradus, RMC 136, Tarantula Nebula, Caldwell 103

30 Doradus, RMC 136, Tarantula Nebula captured by the Webb telescope. Fluffy tan-colored nebula clouds, with rust-colored highlights, surround a black central area. Within that area, the focal point of the image is one large yellow star with eight long thin points. To the right of this star is a bright star cluster in an oval shape. The stars within the cluster look like tiny pale blue sparkles. The cluster is more densely packed at its core and scatters outward. Towards the bottom of the image, multiple arms appear to spiral out of a cloudy tan knob, resembling a spider or a squid structure. Other blue and yellow eight-pointed stars, as well as distant galaxies, are dotted throughout the image.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team



Tarantula Nebula Mosaic
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Roberto Colombari

JWST colour combinations in 30 Doradus (BGR is 200W/335M/470N)
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Tom Williams

Tuesday, August 16, 2022

NGC 1365 - Barred Spiral Galaxy

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1365
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Judy Schmidt
JWST to HST Gif of Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1365
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Judy Schmidt
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, sairjohn
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Desolatora
NGC 1365
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Judy Schmidt

Friday, August 12, 2022

M92, NGC 6341 - Messier 92

JWST NIRcam Image of M92
Credit : NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, HiggsPhoton Sh

Thursday, August 11, 2022

WHL0137-LS - Earendel (Star) Lensed By Galaxy Cluster WHL0137-08

Galaxy Cluster WHL0137-08

JWST to HST comparison of Galaxy Cluster WHL0137-08
Galaxies brighten and appear as the Hubble image fades into the JWST image of the WHL0137-08 galaxy cluster.
Star WHL0137-LS aka Earendel
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Cosmic Spring JWST

Thursday, August 4, 2022

CEERS Collaboration Wide/Deep Field Mosaic

A color image of a deep field of galaxies. Six zoom-ins show spiral galaxies with visible star clusters, and interacting galaxies.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, CEERS

Cropped section of the CEERS Deep Field
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, CEERS

CEERS mosaic of 690 individual frames that took about 24 hours to collect using the telescope's main imager, called the Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam). This new image covers an area of the sky about eight times as large as Webb's First Deep Field image, although it is not quite as deep.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, CEERS

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