James Webb Space Telescope - Science images

Webb acquired this image of the circumstellar disk around the star Vega using the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI).
This Webb image of the disk around the star Vega is an orange colored, smooth, fuzzy halo. The inner disk is whiter toward the center, and there is darker lane between the inner disk and the more orange outer disk. The disk is also perfectly circular, with a black circle in the center blocking light from the star.
The Webb View of spiral galaxies IC 2163 and NGC 2207. James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared light.
The Webb View cut from two views of the same object shown side by side.. The Hubble observation is at left, and the Webb observation is at right. Both show an angled pair of spiral galaxies, IC 2163 at top left, and NGC 2207, at bottom right. IC 2163 is smaller than NGC 2207, and they appear to be overlapping at the center diagonal. In the Hubble image, the galaxies’ cores appear white at the center, and more orange overall. Both galaxies have bright blue spiral arms, and are interlaced with dark brown, irregular dust lanes. Tiny galaxies and a few foreground stars dot the black background of space. There are no data along the bottom left, top right, and bottom right corners. In the Webb image, the galaxies’ cores appear bright white, transitioning to spiral arms that are also bright white, but flecked with pink dots. Tiny galaxies and a few foreground stars dot the entire black background of space.
The Hubble View of spiral galaxies IC 2163 and NGC 2207. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s ultraviolet- and visible-light view.
The Hubble View cut from two views of the same object shown side by side.. The Hubble observation is at left, and the Webb observation is at right. Both show an angled pair of spiral galaxies, IC 2163 at top left, and NGC 2207, at bottom right. IC 2163 is smaller than NGC 2207, and they appear to be overlapping at the center diagonal. In the Hubble image, the galaxies’ cores appear white at the center, and more orange overall. Both galaxies have bright blue spiral arms, and are interlaced with dark brown, irregular dust lanes. Tiny galaxies and a few foreground stars dot the black background of space. There are no data along the bottom left, top right, and bottom right corners. In the Webb image, the galaxies’ cores appear bright white, transitioning to spiral arms that are also bright white, but flecked with pink dots. Tiny galaxies and a few foreground stars dot the entire black background of space.
These are two views of spiral galaxies IC 2163 and NGC 2207. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope’s ultraviolet- and visible-light view...
Two views of the same object are shown side by side, split evenly. The Hubble observation is at left, and the Webb observation is at right. Both show an angled pair of spiral galaxies, IC 2163 at top left, and NGC 2207, at bottom right. IC 2163 is smaller than NGC 2207, and they appear to be overlapping at the center diagonal. In the Hubble image, the galaxies’ cores appear white at the center, and more orange overall. Both galaxies have bright blue spiral arms, and are interlaced with dark brown, irregular dust lanes. Tiny galaxies and a few foreground stars dot the black background of space. There are no data along the bottom left, top right, and bottom right corners. In the Webb image, the galaxies’ cores appear bright white, transitioning to spiral arms that are also bright white, but flecked with pink dots. Tiny galaxies and a few foreground stars dot the entire black background of space.
This mid-infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope excels at showing where the cold dust, set off in white,...
Two spiral galaxies take the shape of a colorful beaded mask that sits above the nose and is angled from top left to bottom right. The galaxy at left, IC 2163, is smaller, taking up a little over a quarter of the view. The galaxy at right, NGC 2207, takes up half the view. IC 2163 has a bright white core, with two prominent white spiral arms that rotate counter clockwise and become straighter toward the ends. Its arms are dotted with pink. NGC 2207 has a very bright core that is larger. Overall, it appears to have thicker spiral arms that spin counter clockwise. This galaxy also contains more pink areas of star formation. In the middle, the galaxies’ arms appear to overlap. The black background of space shows extremely distant galaxies that are tiny, and often red and orange smudges, as well as a few blue foreground stars.
This observation combines mid-infrared light from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, and ultraviolet and visible light from NASA’s Hubble Space...
Two spiral galaxies take the shape of a colorful beaded mask that sits above the nose. The galaxy at left, IC 2163, is smaller, taking up a little over a quarter of the view. The galaxy at right, NGC 2207, takes up half the view, with its spiral arms reaching the edges. IC 2163 has a bright orange core, with two prominent spiral arms that rotate counter clockwise and become straighter towards the ends, the left side extending almost to the edge. Its arms are a mix of pink, white, and blue, with an area that takes the shape of an eyelid appearing whitest. NGC 2207 has a very bright core. Overall, it appears to have larger, thicker spiral arms that spin counter clockwise. This galaxy also contains more and larger blue areas of star formation that poke out like holes from the pink spiral arms. In the middle, the galaxies’ arms appear to overlap. The edges show the black background of space, including extremely distant galaxies that look like orange and red smudges, and a few foreground stars.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) image of the galaxy cluster PLCK G165.7+67.0, also known as G165, on...
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) image of the galaxy cluster PLCK G165.7+67.0, also known as G165, on the left shows the magnifying effect a foreground cluster can have on the distant universe beyond. The foreground cluster is 3.6 billion light-years away from Earth. The zoomed region on the right shows supernova H0pe triply imaged (labeled with white dashed circles) due to gravitational lensing. In this image blue represents light at 0.9, 1.15, and 1.5 microns (F090W + F115W + F150W), green is 2.0 and 2.77 microns (F200W + F277W), and red is 3.56, 4.1, and 4.44 microns (F356W + F410M + F444W).
An artist’s concept of Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1’s outgassing activity as seen from the side. While prior radio-wavelength observations showed a...
Artist’s concept of Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 as seen from the side against a dark, mostly starless swath of space. The rocky, bilobed nucleus is toward the right and resembles the simplified shape of a peanut. The left side of the centaur is partially illuminated by the Sun, which is off-screen, revealing the nucleus’ light brown surface. Four jets of gas, depicted as translucent cones of white, emanate from various points on the Centaur’s surface and extend beyond the frame: two emanate upward from the top, one jet spews from the bottom and extends downward, and one jet emanates from the left side of the nucleus and extends toward the left. A label in the bottom left corner reads “Artist’s Concept.”
A team of scientists used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s spectrographic capabilities to gather data on Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1, one...
Graphic titled “Centaur 29P Outgassing: NIRSpec Prism Integral Field Unit” with two maps at the left, and two artist’s concepts with graphic overlays showing jets of CO and C O 2 emanating from the centaur at the right. The top map is labeled “C O 2” and shows two jets of carbon dioxide gas emanating from Centaur 29P toward the north and south, while the bottom map is labeled “C O” and shows one jet of carbon monoxide gas pointing toward the north. On the right is a labeled artist’s concept of Centaur 29P, which includes the two C O 2 jets, one C O jet, and a front jet composed of C O and C O 2. Toward the lower right corner is a side view of the labeled artist’s concept. View description for details.
What appears as a faint dot in this James Webb Space Telescope image may actually be a groundbreaking discovery. Detailed...
A black background sprinkled with small, colorful galaxies in orange, blue, and white. On the left, a third of the way down from the top of the image, a very faint dot of a galaxy is outlined with a white square and pulled out in a graphic to be shown magnified. In the pullout square to the right, the galaxy is a hazy white dot edged in orange, with faint blue projections opposite each other at the 11 o’clock and 5 o’clock positions.
This comparison of the data collected by the James Webb Space Telescope with a computer model prediction highlights the same...
Infographic titled Galaxy GS-NDG-9422, Nebular light outshines starlight. Graphic is divided horizontally with one spectrum on top, labeled Webb Data, and one on bottom, labeled Model Spectrum. A portion of both spectrums about an inch wide is highlighted with a vertical column labeled Slope Feature. There is a clear similarity between the top and bottom graphs, thought the top has more angular lines and the bottom is smoother and rounded. See extended description for more.
This composite image of Arp 107, created with data from the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI...
A pair of interacting galaxies. The larger of the two galaxies is slightly right of center, and composed of a hazy, bright, white center and a ring of gaseous filaments, which are different shades of red and orange. Toward the bottom left and bottom right of the ring are filaments of gas spiraling inward toward the core. At the top left of the ring is a noticeable gap, bordered by two large, orange pockets of dust and gas. The smaller galaxy to its left is made of hazy white gas and dust, which becomes more diffuse farther away from its center. To this galaxy’s bottom left, there is a smaller, more diffuse gas cloud that wafts outward toward the edges. Many red, orange, and white galaxies are spread throughout, with some hazier in composition and others having more defined spiral patterns.
This image of Arp 107, shown by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), reveals the supermassive black hole that lies in the...
A pair of interacting galaxies. The larger of the two galaxies is slightly right of center, and is composed of a bright, white center and a ring of blue, gaseous filaments. The center of this galaxy shows Webb’s eight-pronged diffraction pattern. There are three filaments of gas and dust moving from the ring toward the center. At the top left of the ring is a noticeable gap, bordered by two large, blue pockets of dust and gas. The smaller galaxy is made of hazy, light blue gas and dust. Many red, green, blue, and yellow galaxies are spread throughout, with some being hazier in composition and others having more defined spiral patterns.
Annotated image of Digel Cloud 2S captured by Webb's NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), with compass arrows, a...
Annotated image of Digel Cloud 2S captured by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) with compass arrows, scale bar, color key, and graphic overlays for reference. At center right is a compact star cluster composed of luminous red, blue, and white points of light. Faint jets with clumpy, diffuse material extend in various directions from the bright cluster. Five white arrows trace the paths of the jets. Above and to the right is a smaller cluster of stars. Translucent red wisps of material stretch across the scene, though there are patches and a noticeable gap in the top left corner that reveal the black background of space. Background galaxies are scattered across this swath of space, appearing as small blue-white and orange-white dots or fuzzy, thin disks. There are two noticeably larger points, foreground stars, with diffraction spikes: an orange-white point on the left, and a blue-white point in the top right.
Scientists used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to examine select star-forming areas in the Extreme Outer Galaxy in near- and...
At center right is a compact star cluster composed of luminous red, blue, and white points of light. Faint jets with clumpy, diffuse material extend in various directions from the bright cluster. Above and to the right is a smaller cluster of stars. Translucent red wisps of material stretch across the scene, though there are patches and a noticeable gap in the top left corner that reveal the black background of space. Background galaxies are scattered across this swath of space, appearing as small blue-white and orange-white dots or fuzzy, thin disks. There are two noticeably larger points, foreground stars, with diffraction spikes: an orange-white point on the left, and a blue-white point in the top right.
The galaxy cluster MACS-J0417.5-1154 is so massive it is warping the fabric of space-time and distorting the appearance of galaxies...
Amid a field of galaxies, a repeated, elongated red galaxy forms a shape like the top of a question mark, with another galaxy positioned like the question mark’s dot. In each occurrence, another white, clumpy galaxy with an overall circular shape appears perched on top of the red galaxy. A very bright foreground galaxy appears to the right of the bottom curve of the question mark shape. To the lower right, among other galaxies, another occurrence of the galaxy pair appears, unaffiliated with the question mark shape.
Wide Field View: The galaxy cluster MACS-J0417.5-1154 is so massive it is warping the fabric of space-time and distorting the...
At the center of a field of many colorful galaxies, three elongated red galaxies curve around to approximate the shape of the top of a question mark. Another reddish galaxy appears in about the right position to be the dot of the question mark. A bright white, oval foreground galaxy draws the eye from its position right next to the question mark shape.
Hubble View: NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has also observed the galaxy cluster MACS-J0417.5-1154, but the dusty red galaxy that appears...
Hubble View: The same region of space in side-by-side images. The left image is labeled “Hubble” and the galaxies shown have an overall yellow tone and haze. The image on the right is labeled “Webb.” In the center of that image, several images of an elongated red galaxy for a shape like the top of a question mark. In comparison it’s clear that some of the features creating the question mark shape are present in the left-hand image as well, but probably wouldn’t be noticed if that image stood alone. The right-hand image is more colorful and defined than the image on the left, with shades of white, red, and a little blue.
Webb View: NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has also observed the galaxy cluster MACS-J0417.5-1154, but the dusty red galaxy that appears...
Webb View: The same region of space in side-by-side images. The left image is labeled “Hubble” and the galaxies shown have an overall yellow tone and haze. The image on the right is labeled “Webb.” In the center of that image, several images of an elongated red galaxy for a shape like the top of a question mark. In comparison it’s clear that some of the features creating the question mark shape are present in the left-hand image as well, but probably wouldn’t be noticed if that image stood alone. The right-hand image is more colorful and defined than the image on the left, with shades of white, red, and a little blue.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has also observed the galaxy cluster MACS-J0417.5-1154, but the dusty red galaxy that appears multiple times...
The same region of space in side-by-side images. The left image is labeled “Hubble” and the galaxies shown have an overall yellow tone and haze. The image on the right is labeled “Webb.” In the center of that image, several images of an elongated red galaxy for a shape like the top of a question mark. In comparison it’s clear that some of the features creating the question mark shape are present in the left-hand image as well, but probably wouldn’t be noticed if that image stood alone. The right-hand image is more colorful and defined than the image on the left, with shades of white, red, and a little blue.
This image shows a small portion of the field observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) for...
Hundreds of small galaxies against the black background of space. Several white spiral galaxies are near image center. Most of the galaxies are various shades of orange and red, and many are too tiny to discern a shape. A handful of foreground stars show Webb's six diffraction spikes.
This image of the gas-giant exoplanet Epsilon Indi Ab was taken with the coronagraph on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s...
This image shows the exoplanet Epsilon Indi Ab. The image is mostly black, with blue scale-like features apparent in the central region of the image. At the center of the image, there is a black circle, and in the center, a symbol representing a star. This black circle blocks the light from the host star. To the lower left of the circle is a fuzzy bright orange circle, which is the exoplanet.
This artist’s concept shows what the exoplanet WASP-39 b could look like based on indirect transit observations from NASA’s James...
Illustration of a planet, zoomed in on the planet’s dayside/nightside boundary. The planet encompasses takes up the full image. At the bottom left, the image is dark, depicting the nightside covering the planet in a dark shadow. In the right side of the image, the planet has a fuzzy orange-pink atmosphere with hints of latitudinal wispy cloud bands. The right upper corner is bright, where the star (not illustrated) shines.
This transmission spectrum, captured using Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) PRISM bright object-time series mode, shows the amounts of different wavelengths...
Graphic titled “Hot Gas-Giant Exoplanet WASP-39 b Transmission Spectrum: Morning Terminator vs. Evening Terminator” has two sets of data points with error bars and a best-fit model for each on a graph of Amount of Light Blocked on the y-axis versus Wavelength of Light in microns on x-axis. Y-axis ranges from less light blocked at bottom to more light blocked at top. X-axis ranges from 2.0 to 5.2 microns. Webb NIRSpec data consists of 38 points plotted in yellow and green, the best-fit model for each are jagged yellow and green lines with several broad peaks and valleys. Two features are labeled. From left to right: Water H2O and Carbon Dioxide CO2.
A light curve from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) shows the change in brightness from the star...
Infographic titled “Hot Gas-Giant Exoplanet WASP-39 b Transit Light Curve, NIRSpec PRISM.” At the top of the infographic is a diagram showing a planet transiting (moving in front of) its star. Below the diagram is a graph showing the change in relative brightness of the star-planet system over 7 hours. The diagram and graph are aligned vertically to show the relationship between the geometry of the star-planet system as the planet orbits, and the measurements on the graph. The infographic shows that the brightness of the system remains steady until the planet begins to transit the star. It then decreases until the planet is directly in front of the star. The brightness increases again until the planet is no longer blocking the star, at which point it levels out. Please reference the extended text description for more details.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared view of interacting galaxies Arp 142 seems to sing in primary colors. The Egg...
Two interacting galaxies known as Arp 142 in a horizontal image taken in mid-infrared light. At left is NGC 2937, an elliptical galaxy that looks like a tiny teal oval and is nicknamed the Egg. At right is NGC 2936, a distorted spiral galaxy nicknamed the Penguin, which is significantly larger. A beak-like region points toward the Egg, but lies far above it. Where the eye would be is an opaque, almost washed-out pink spiral. This galaxy’s distorted pink, purple, and blue arms create the bird’s beak, back, and tail. The tail, which is closer to the Egg, is wide and layered, like a beta fish’s tail. The Penguin and the Egg appear very separate. The galaxy at top right, PGC 1237172, is barely visible. A brighter slightly larger blue foreground star that is overtop this galaxy has tiny diffraction spikes. Throughout the image are tiny galaxies in bright reds, greens, and blues. The background of space is black.
The distorted spiral galaxy at center, the Penguin, and the compact elliptical at left, the Egg, are locked in an...
Arp 142, two interacting galaxies, observed in near- and mid-infrared light. At left is NGC 2937, nicknamed the Egg. Its center is the brighter and whiter. There are six diffraction spikes atop its gauzy blue layers. At right is NGC 2936, nicknamed the Penguin. Its beak-like region points toward and above the Egg. Where the eye would be is a small, opaque yellow spiral. The Penguin’s distorted arms form the bird’s beak, back, and tail. The tail is wide and layered, like a beta fish’s tail. A semi-transparent blue hue traces the Penguin and extends from the galaxy, creating an upside-down U over top of both galaxies. At top right is another galaxy seen from the side, pointing roughly at a 45-degree angle. It is largely light blue. Its length appears approximately as long as the Egg’s height. One foreground star with large, bright blue diffraction spikes appears over top of the galaxy and another near it. The entire black background is filled with tiny, extremely distant galaxies.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured visible light when observing Arp 142, nicknamed the Penguin and the Egg, with its Wide...
Hubbles view of a frame split down the middle: Hubble’s visible light image at left, and Webb’s near-infrared image at right. Both show the Egg at left and the Penguin at right. In Hubble’s view, the Penguin is highly detailed, with a bright blue beak, body, and tail that is covered in an arc of bright brown dust. The Egg, to its left, appears bright, gleaming yellowish white. At top right is another galaxy seen from the side, about as long as the Egg’s height. Dozens of galaxies and stars appear in the background. Webb’s near-infrared image shows the Penguin’s beak, head, and back in shades of pink. It’s tail-like region is more diffuse, and a mix of lighter pinks and blues. The Egg appears slightly larger in blue layers. A semi-transparent blue forms an upside down U overtop both galaxies. At top right, an edge-on galaxy has many more pinpricks of light, which are stars. Thousands of galaxies and stars appear in the background. Some galaxies are shades of orange, while others are white. Click View Description for additional details.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope captured visible light when observing Arp 142, nicknamed the Penguin and the Egg, with its Wide...
Webb's view of a Frame split down the middle: Hubble’s visible light image at left, and Webb’s near-infrared image at right. Both show the Egg at left and the Penguin at right. In Hubble’s view, the Penguin is highly detailed, with a bright blue beak, body, and tail that is covered in an arc of bright brown dust. The Egg, to its left, appears bright, gleaming yellowish white. At top right is another galaxy seen from the side, about as long as the Egg’s height. Dozens of galaxies and stars appear in the background. Webb’s near-infrared image shows the Penguin’s beak, head, and back in shades of pink. It’s tail-like region is more diffuse, and a mix of lighter pinks and blues. The Egg appears slightly larger in blue layers. A semi-transparent blue forms an upside down U overtop both galaxies. At top right, an edge-on galaxy has many more pinpricks of light, which are stars. Thousands of galaxies and stars appear in the background. Some galaxies are shades of orange, while others are white. Click View Description for additional details.
L1527, shown in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), is a molecular cloud that harbors...
A growing protostar embedded within a molecular cloud. The center of the image shows a bright, red region, where the growing protostar resides, with a thin, gray lane of matter cutting through it horizontally, which is the protostar’s accretion disk. Above and below this region are blue triangular-shaped molecular clouds, which give the overall object an hourglass shape. The areas in the molecular clouds closest to the protostar have more pronounced plumes of blue gas. There are red, yellow, orange, blue, and green stars and galaxies scattered across the background.
In this image of the Serpens Nebula from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, astronomers found a grouping of aligned protostellar...
A rectangular image with black vertical rectangles at the bottle left and top right to indicate missing data. A young star-forming region is filled with wispy orange, red, and blue layers of gas and dust. The upper left corner of the image is filled with mostly orange dust, and within that orange dust, there are several small red plumes of gas that extend from the top left to the bottom right, at the same angle. The center of the image is filled with mostly blue gas. At the center, there is one particularly bright star, that has an hourglass shadow above and below it. To the right of that is what looks a vertical eye-shaped crevice with a bright star at the center. The gas to the right of the crevice is a darker orange. Small points of light are sprinkled across the field, brightest sources in the field have extensive eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of the Webb Telescope.
This video shows the different major components that compose the Crab Nebula as observed by the James Webb Space Telescope....
This image by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows different structural details of...
The Crab Nebula. An oval with complex structure extends from lower left to upper right against a black background. On the oval’s exterior lie curtains of glowing yellow and green fluffy material. Its interior shell shows large-scale loops of mottled filaments of yellow-white and green, studded with clumps and knots. Translucent thin ribbons of smoky blue lie within the remnant’s interior, brightest toward its center. The blue material follows different directions throughout, including sometimes sharply curving away from certain regions within the remnant. A faint, wispy ring of blue material encircles the very center of the nebula. Around and within the supernova remnant are many points of blue, green, purple, and white light.
The JADES Deep Field uses observations taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the JADES (JWST...
Space telescope image showing hundreds of objects of different colors, shapes, and sizes scattered across the black background of space.
The JADES Deep Field uses observations taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the JADES (JWST...
Space telescope image showing hundreds of objects of different colors, shapes, and sizes scattered across the black background of space, with about 80 of the objects circled in green.
This mosaic displays three of about 80 transients, or objects of changing brightness, identified in data from the JADES (JWST...
Six space telescope images show close-ups of two different observations (rows) of three different galaxies (columns). Of note are the bright blobs that are visible in one observation of the galaxy, but not the other.
This mosaic displays three of about 80 transients, or objects of changing brightness, identified in data from the JADES (JWST...
Six space telescope images show close-ups of two different observations (rows) of three different galaxies (columns). Of note arrows point to the bright blobs that are visible in one observation of the galaxy, but not the other.
The JADES Deep Field uses observations taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the JADES (JWST...
Webb Space telescope deep field image showing hundreds of objects of different colors, shapes, and sizes scattered across the black background of space.
The JADES Deep Field uses observations taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the JADES (JWST...
Space telescope image showing hundreds of objects of different colors, shapes, and sizes scattered across the black background of space, with about 80 of the objects circled in green.
The spectrum of the star ISO-ChaI 147 revealed by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows the richest...
Graph labeled “Very low-mass star, ISO-ChaI 147, Hydrocarbons in protoplanetary disk, MIRI medium resolution spectroscopy.” The x-axis is labeled “Wavelength of Light, microns” and extends from 6 to 17 microns with tick marks every 2 microns. The y-axis is labeled “Brightness” and has an up arrow labeled “brighter” and a down arrow labeled “dimmer.” A jagged dark-gray line with various peaks extends horizontally. Five peaks are highlighted with colored vertical bands, and the data line within the bands is a brighter gray. They are: methane (CH4) from about 7 to 8.5 microns, ethane (C2H6) from 11.5 to 12.6 microns, cyanoacetylene (HC3N) at about 15.2 microns, propyne (C3H4) at about 15.8 microns, and methyl radical (CH3) from 16.3 to 16.8 microns.
This is an artist’s impression of a young star surrounded by a disk of gas and dust. An international team...
A yellowish star is at the center of the image. It is surrounded by a mottled disk of gas and dust that transitions from bright yellow to darker orange as you move outward. The disk stretches from about 8 o'clock to 2 o'clock and is tilted so that the nearer side is toward the viewer.
This infographic compares the characteristics of three classes of stars in our galaxy: Sunlike stars are classified as G stars;...
Infographic with 3 rows comparing the habitale zone size for 3 different types of stars, M, K, G.
This infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (also called Webb or JWST) was taken by the NIRCam (Near-Infrared...
A field of thousands of small galaxies of various shapes and colors on the black background of space. A bright foreground star with diffraction spikes is at lower left. Near image center, a tiny white box outlines a region and two diagonal lines lead to a larger box in upper right, enlarging the view of this area. Within the box is a banana-shaped blob that is blueish-red in one half and distinctly red in the other half. An arrow points to the redder portion and is labeled “JADES GS z 14 0 .”
This illustration shows a galaxy forming only a few hundred million years after the big bang, when gas was a...
This illustration is awash in bright blues, with only areas of the black background of space peeking out near the edges. Just above center is a large white spiral galaxy that is forming within a large cloud of blue gas. Its spiral arms twirl clockwise. Immediately around the galaxy’s edges are larger light blue dots. The gas appears thicker and brighter blue below the galaxy and toward the bottom left in what looks like a loose, extended column. Other wispy blue gas appears all around the galaxy, extending to every edge of the illustration. There are two additional spiral galaxies, though they are about half the size of the one at the center. They appear toward the top left and bottom right, and both are connected to regions of blue gas. Several bright knots dot the brightest blue areas near the center, and toward the top right. The background is clearer and more obviously black along a wider area at the left edge, a sliver along the top right, and in triangles toward the bottom right corner.
This artist’s concept shows what the warm Neptune exoplanet WASP-107 b could look like based on recent data gathered by...
Illustration of an exoplanet with a hazy blue atmosphere and loose bands of clouds on the black background of space. The right three-quarters of the planet is lit by a star not shown in the illustration. The left quarter is in shadow. The terminator, the boundary between the day and night sides is gradual, not sharp. The planet is light blue with loose bands of white clouds. The limb of the planet (the edge) has a subtle blue glow.
This transmission spectrum, captured using NASA’s Hubble and James Webb space telescopes, shows the amounts of different wavelengths (colors) of...
Graphic titled “Hot Gas-Giant Exoplanet WASP-107 b Transmission Spectrum: Hubble WFC3 Grism Spectroscopy; Webb NIRCam Grism Spectroscopy; Webb MIRI Low-Resolution Spectroscopy” has 3 sets of data points with error bars and a best-fit model on a graph of Amount of Light Blocked on the y-axis versus Wavelength of Light in microns on the x-axis. Y-axis ranges from less light blocked at bottom to more light blocked at top. X-axis ranges from 0.8 to 12 microns. Data are identified in a legend. Hubble WFC3: 30 green data points ranging from 0.9 to 1.6 microns; Webb NIRCam: 177 orange data points ranging from 2.5 to 5 microns; Webb MIRI: 46 pink data points ranging from 5 to 12 microns. Best-fit model is a gray line with numerous peaks and valleys. The model and data are closely aligned. Ten features on the graph are labeled: Water H2O; Water H2O and Carbon Dioxide CO2; Ammonia NH3; Methane CH4; Sulfur Dioxide SO2; Carbon Dioxide CO2; Carbon Monoxide CO; Water H2O; Sulfur Dioxide SO2; and Ammonia NH3.
This transmission spectrum, captured using Webb’s NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph) Bright Object Spectrometer, shows the amounts of different wavelengths (colors) of...
Graphic titled “Hot Gas-Giant Exoplanet WASP-107 b Transmission Spectrum: NIRSpec Bright Object Time-Series Spectroscopy” has one set of data points with error bars and a best-fit model on a graph of Amount of Light Blocked on the y-axis versus Wavelength of Light in microns on x-axis. Y-axis ranges from less light blocked at bottom to more light blocked at top. X-axis ranges from 2.5 to 5.2 microns. Webb NIRSpec data consists of 576 points plotted in blue. Best-fit model is a jagged gray line with several broad peaks and valleys. Five features are labeled. From left to right: Water H2O and Carbon Dioxide CO2; Methane CH4; Sulfur Dioxide SO2; Carbon Dioxide CO2; and Carbon Monoxide CO.
A light curve of 7.5- to 11.8-micron light captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) in March...
Infographic titled “Super-Earth Exoplanet 55 Cancri e Secondary Eclipse Light Curve, MIRI Low-Resolution Spectroscopy.” At the top of the infographic is a diagram showing a planet moving behind its star (a secondary eclipse). Below the diagram is a graph showing the change in brightness of mid-infrared light emitted by the star-planet system over the course of about four-and-a-half hours. The diagram and graph are aligned vertically to show the relationship between the geometry of the star-planet system as the planet orbits, and the measurements on the graph. The infographic shows that the brightness of the system decreases as the planet moves behind the star.
A thermal emission spectrum of the super-Earth exoplanet 55 Cancri e, captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared...
Graphic titled “Super-Earth Exoplanet 55 Cancri e Emission Spectrum, NIRCam Grism Spectroscopy (F444W), MIRI Low-Resolution Spectroscopy” shows a graph of amount of light detected from planet versus wavelength of light, with 2 model emission spectra for comparison. NIRCam data in orange range from 4 to 5 microns. MIRI data in purple range from 6.5 to 11.5 microns. Red line along the upper half of the graph is labeled “Model A: Emission spectrum if planet has a rock-vapor atmosphere.” Blue line along the bottom half of the graph is labeled “Model B: Emission spectrum if planet has a volatile-rich atmosphere.” Pattern of data points align closely to pattern of blue, volatile-rich model. Region between 4 and 5 microns, which includes NIRCam data, is highlighted in green and labeled “Carbon Dioxide C O 2 or Carbon Monoxide C O.” Both NIRCam data and blue volatile-rich model show dip in brightness. Red rock-vapor model does not show this dip.
This artist's concept shows what the exoplanet 55 Cancri e could look like based on observations from NASA’s James Webb...
Illustration of a rocky exoplanet and its star. The star is in the background at the lower left and appears somewhat, but not significantly, smaller in the sky than the planet. It has a bright orange-red glow, and appears to have an active surface. The planet is in the foreground to the upper right of the star. The left quarter of the planet (the side facing the star) is lit, while the rest is in shadow. The planet has hints of a rocky, partly molten surface beneath the haze of a thin atmosphere. The boundary between the day and night sides of the planet is fuzzy.
This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope of a massive galaxy cluster called WHL0137-08 contains the most strongly magnified...
A black background is scattered with hundreds of small galaxies of different shapes, ranging in color from white to yellow to red. Just a bit above the center, there is a bright source of light, a star, with 8 bright diffraction spikes extending out.
CEERS (NIRCam Compass Image)
About 100,000 galaxies appear with many overlapping objects at various distances. They include large, blue foreground stars, some with all eight diffraction spikes, white and pink spiral and elliptical galaxies, and many tiny red dots throughout.
Webb’s infrared image of the galaxy cluster El Gordo (“the Fat One”) reveals hundreds of galaxies, some never before seen...
A black background is scattered with hundreds of small galaxies of different shapes, ranging in color from white to yellow to red. Some galaxies are distorted, appearing to be stretched out or mirror imaged.
The Pillars of Creation are set off in a kaleidoscope of color in NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s near-infrared-light view....
Layers of semi-opaque red colored gas and dust, bottom left, with three prominent pillars rise toward the top right. The left pillar is the largest and widest, the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of brown and have red outlines.
This graphic presentation compares the spectral data of GRB 230307A’s kilonova as observed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and...
Bright galaxies and other light sources in various sizes and shapes are scattered across a black swath of space: small points, hazy elliptical-like smudges with halos, and spiral-shaped blobs. The objects vary in color: white, blue-white, yellow-white, and orange-red. Toward the center right is a blue-white spiral galaxy seen face-on that is larger than the other light sources in the image. The galaxy is labeled “former home galaxy.” Toward the upper left is a small red point, which has a white circle around it and is labeled “GRB 230307A kilonova.”
NIRCam (the Near Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured this picture of the surface of Jupiter’s moon...
Jupiters moon Europa, a blue-and-white sphere against a black background is somewhat reminiscent of the famous Blue Marble picture of Earth from space.
The two stars in Wolf-Rayet 140 produce shells of dust every eight years that look like rings, as seen in...
The two stars in Wolf-Rayet 140 produce shells of dust
What do we see in Webb's latest image of the ice giant Neptune? Webb captured seven of Neptune’s 14 known...
Webb captured seven of Neptune’s 14 known moons: Galatea, Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Proteus, Larissa, and Triton. Neptune’s large and unusual moon, Triton, dominates this Webb portrait of Neptune as a very bright point of light sporting the signature diffraction spikes seen in many of Webb’s images.
This image by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) reveals new details in infrared...
The Crab Nebula. An oval nebula with complex structure against a black background. On the nebula’s exterior, particularly at the top left and bottom left, lie curtains of glowing red and orange fluffy material. Its interior shell shows large-scale loops of mottled filaments of yellow-white and green, studded with clumps and knots. Translucent thin ribbons of smoky white lie within the remnant’s interior, brightest toward its center. The white material follows different directions throughout, including sometimes sharply curving away from certain regions within the remnant. A faint, wispy ring of white material encircles the very center of the nebula. Around and within the supernova remnant are many points of blue, red, and yellow light.
ILLUSTRATION: This artist’s concept shows what the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-17 b could look like based on observations from...
Illustration showing a portion of the disk of a cloudy planet set against the black background of space. About one-eighth of the planet is visible. It fills the lower right half of the frame, with the limb (the edge, or horizon) curving from the bottom left corner to the upper right corner. The planet is partially lit by a star that is off to the upper left, out of view. The planet is brightest along the limb (on the dayside), and grows dimmer toward the lower right corner (the nightside), becoming almost completely dark about halfway in. Wispy, light-tan-colored clouds are visible in the lit portion and there is a hazy blueish glow along the horizon. Several stars are sc attered in the background.
This wider view of the Uranian system with Webb’s NIRCam instrument features the planet Uranus as well as six of...
Image labeled “James Webb Space Telescope, Uranus, February 6, 2023.” Uranus is light blue, and surrounded by vertical rings on a black background. Around Uranus are many faint blue points labeled Puck, Ariel, Miranda, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon.
This side-by-side comparison of galaxy cluster MACS0416 as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in optical light (left) and the...
Two side-by-side photos of the same region of space. The left image is labeled “HST” and the right image “JWST.” A variety of galaxies of various shapes are scattered across the image, making it feel densely populated. The JWST image contains a number of red galaxies that are invisible or only barely visible in the HST image.
In the MIRI observations of NGC 1365, clumps of dust and gas in the interstellar medium have absorbed the light...
A galaxy spiral with a bright, light pink eye-shaped center, just right of center with light blue web like spirals throughout.
This zoomed-in image of Uranus, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) Feb. 6, 2023, reveals stunning views of the planet’s...
The planet Uranus vertical rings on a black background. The planet is light blue with a large, white patch on the right side. On the edge at the upper left is a bright white spot, with another white spot on the left side of the planet.
A transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-17 b captured by the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on NASA’s James...
Graphic titled “Hot Gas Giant Exoplanet WASP-17 b Composition of Cloud Particles, MIRI Low-Resolution Time-Series Spectroscopy” showing 28 data points plotted as white circles with vertical error bars on a graph of amount of light blocked in percent on the y-axis versus wavelength of light in microns on the x-axis. The y-axis ranges from 1.45 to 1.65 percent. The x-axis ranges from 5 to 12 microns. A jagged purple line is labeled “Model spectrum based on Webb, Hubble, and Spitzer data.” One broad, prominent peak visible in the data and model is highlighted with a vertical green band labeled “Light blocked by quartz (S I O 2) crystals.” The peak is centered at about 8.6 microns and 1.59 percent. Running across the green band below the purple peak, is a jagged dashed yellow line labeled “What the spectrum would look like with no quartz clouds.” This line slopes down to the right. In the background is an illustration of a planet with wispy clouds and a hazy blueish glow along the horizon.
This side-by-side comparison of the Crab Nebula as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in optical light (left) and the...
A side-by-side-comparison of the Crab Nebula as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope in optical light (left) and the James Webb Space Telescope in infrared light (right). In both images, the oval nebula’s complex structure lies against a black background. On the nebula’s exterior, particularly at the top left and bottom left, lie curtains of glowing red and orange fluffy material. Interior to this outer shell lie large-scale loops of mottled filaments of yellow-white and green, studded with clumps and knots. In the Hubble image, the central interior of the nebula glows brightly, while the Webb image shows translucent thin ribbons of smoky white in the same area. Around and within the supernova remnant are many points of blue-white light in the Hubble image, and blue, red, and yellow light in the Webb image.
More than 13 billion years ago, during the Era of Reionization, the universe was a very different place. The gas...
Four-part illustration (left to right): 1. Tiny irregular blobs over blue background. 2. The irregular blobs are bigger, and two are overlapping. 3. Even bigger irregular blobs, many adjoining. 4. Hazy spiral shapes across dark background.
Cassiopeia A (Cas A) is a supernova remnant located about 11,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cassiopeia. It spans...
Circular-shaped nebula with complex structure. On its exterior, particularly top and left, are fiery orange curtains of material. Within this is a ring of bright pink filaments. A greenish loop is on right. Blue, green, and red wisps are throughout.
This image from the Kitt Peak National Observatory of NGC 6496 contextualizes the locations of Supernova 2004et and Supernova 2017eaw...
An image of a bright spiral galaxy, which looks like a spiraling swirl of red, pink, white, and pale blue clouds and dots around a white glowing center. Two small white circles highlight supernovae.
A previously unknown 100–200-metre asteroid — roughly the size of Rome’s Colosseum — has been detected by an international team...
Illustration of an irregularly-shaped grey asteroid against the dark background of space.
This image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope exquisitely captures Uranus’s seasonal north polar...
The planet Uranus on a black background. The planet appears blue with a large, white patch taking up the right half. The patch is whitest at the center, then fades into blue at it expands from right to left. A thin outline of Uranus is also white. Around the planet is a system of nested rings. The outermost ring is the brightest while the innermost ring is the faintest. Unlike Saturn’s horizontal rings, the rings of Uranus are vertical and so they appear to surround the planet in an oval shape. There are 9 blueish white dots scattered around the rings.
The luminous, hot star Wolf-Rayet 124 (WR 124) is prominent at the center of the James Webb Space Telescope’s composite...
A large, bright star shines from the center with smaller stars scattered throughout the image. A clumpy cloud of material surrounds the central star, with more material above and below than on the sides.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a tightly bound pair of actively forming stars, known as Herbig-Haro 46/47, in...
Horizontal orange cloud known as Herbig-Haro 46/47, with a central yellow-white blob pierced by red diffraction spikes. A surrounding nebula is seen as a delicate, semi-transparent blue haze. The background is filled with stars and galaxies.
Artist’s Concept: This artist’s concept compares two types of typical, planet-forming disks around newborn, Sun-like stars. On the left is...
This artist’s concept compares two types of typical, planet-forming disks around newborn, Sun-like stars. On the left is a compact disk with no rings or gaps. On the right is an extended disk with rings and gaps. The compact disk is considerably smaller than the extended disk. Both the right and left illustrations have a bright yellow center indicative of a newly formed star. In both, the yellow center is surrounded by a swirling, orange disk. On the left, the compact disk appears unbroken by any gaps or rings. On the right, the extended disk features two, thick, mottled, orange rings surrounded by two, large, almost black gaps. The central portion of the extended disk has an outer region of orange surrounding a bright yellow center.
This deep galaxy field from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) shows an arrangement of 10 distant galaxies marked by eight white...
A deep field image with many colorful galaxies and six-pointed stars sprinkled across deep black space. Small white circles scattered across the center and lower left mark ten galaxies that existed just 830 million years after the Big Bang.
This graphic compares the dayside temperature of TRAPPIST-1 b as measured using Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) to computer models of...
Infographic titled, “Rocky Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b Dayside Temperature Comparison, MIRI F1500W” showing five planets plotted along a horizontal temperature scale: Earth, TRAPPIST-1 b, Mercury, and two different models of TRAPPIST-1 b.
Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument reveals the star, nicknamed Earendel, to be a massive B-type star more than twice as...
The image is split vertically. On left, a black background scattered with hundreds of multi-color small galaxies. On right, a zoomed-in portion showing a particularly long, red, thin line. Among the bright dots along this line, one is labeled Earendel.
The James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph captured the chemical fingerprints of selected galaxies behind SMACS 0723, including three faint,...
At top, two jagged green lines reveal the chemical fingerprints of nearby green pea galaxies. Below, similar red lines show Webb measurements of three distant galaxies. Peaks in both align with specific wavelengths of light, shown as 10 colored bars.
What do we see in Webb’s latest image of the ice giant Neptune? Webb captured seven of Neptune’s 14 known...
Webb captured seven of Neptune’s 14 known moons: Galatea, Naiad, Thalassa, Despina, Proteus, Larissa, and Triton. Neptune’s large and unusual moon, Triton, dominates this Webb portrait of Neptune as a very bright point of light sporting the signature diffraction spikes seen in many of Webb’s images. Labels have been added for Neptune moon names.
This artist’s concept portrays the star PDS 70 and its inner protoplanetary disk. New measurements by NASA’s James Webb Space...
Left of center, a bright light source illuminates a surrounding disk colored dusky red. The disk is tilted from upper left to lower right, and has spiral features that are most prominent near the star.
This graphic shows detections of the most distant active supermassive black holes currently known in the universe. They were identified...
A graphic titled Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey, Active Supermassive Black Holes Across Cosmic Time. The graphic shows three CEERS detections in the context of those from other telescopes.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared view of the Pillars of Creation strikes a chilling tone. Thousands of stars that...
Semi-opaque layers of blue and gray gas and dust start at the bottom right and go toward the top left. The left pillar is the largest and widest. The peaks of the 2nd and 3rd pillars are set off in darker shades of blue outlines.
This spectrum shows data from the protoplanetary disk termed XUE 1, which is located in the star cluster Pismis 24....
Graphic titled “XUE 1 Irradiated Protoplanetary Disk, MIRI Medium -Resolution Spectroscopy” shows a graph of brightness versus wavelength from 13.3 to 15.5 microns, with acetylene, hydrogen cyanide, water, and carbon dioxide peaks highlighted.
This image of the dusty debris disk surrounding the young star Fomalhaut is from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). It reveals...
An orange oval extends from the 7 o’clock to 1 o’clock positions. It features a prominent outer ring, a darker gap, an intermediate ring, a narrower dark gap, and a bright inner disk. At the center is a ragged black spot indicating a lack of data.
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope made the Pillars of Creation famous with its first image in 1995, but revisited the scene...
Comparison of Pillars of Creation. Hubble’s visible-light view, left, shows darker pillars rising from the bottom to the top, ending in three points. Webb’s near-infrared image, right, shows the pillars, but they are semi-opaque and rusty red-colored.
This image highlights several interesting features of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A as seen with Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera): NIRCam’s exquisite...
The image is split into 5 boxes. A large image at the left-hand side takes up most of the image. There are four images along the right-hand side in a column, labeled 1, 2, 3, and 4. The 4 images in the column are zoomed-in areas of the larger square image on the left. The image on the left has a circular-shaped cloud of gas and dust with complex structure, with an inner shell of bright pink and orange filaments that look like tiny pieces of shattered glass. A zoom-in of this material appears in the box labeled 1. Around the exterior of the inner shell in the main image there are wispy curtains of gas that look like campfire smoke. Within the cavity of the inner shell, there are small circular bubbles outlined in white. Box 2 is a zoom-in on these circles. Scattered outside the nebula in the main image, there are also clumps of yellow dust. Boxes 3 and 4 are zoomed-in areas of these clumps. Box 4 highlights a particularly large clump at the bottom right of the main image that is detailed and striated.
This panchromatic view of galaxy cluster MACS0416 was created by combining infrared observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope with...
A field of galaxies on the black background of space. In the middle, stretching from left to right, is a collection of dozens of yellowish spiral and elliptical galaxies that form a foreground galaxy cluster. Among them are distorted linear features, which mostly appear to follow invisible concentric circles curving around the center of the image.
This graphic presentation of spectral data highlights a key similarity and difference between observations of Comet 238P/Read by the NIRSpec...
Graph comparing the spectral data of Comet 238 P/Read and Comet 109 P/Hartley 2, highlighting the detection of water in both, and the absence of carbon dioxide in Comet Read.
This light curve shows the change in brightness of the TRAPPIST-1 system as the second planet, TRAPPIST-1 c, moves behind...
Infographic titled Rocky Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c Secondary Eclipse Light Curve, MIRI Time-Series Photometry (F1500W) a diagram showing the change in brightness of 15-micron light emitted by the star-planet system over the course of nearly 2 hours.
This image from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) shows a group of galaxies, including a large distorted ring-shaped galaxy known as...
A large blue, speckled galaxy resembling a wheel with gold spots along the outer ring, a small, inner oval, with dusty blue in between. Two smaller galaxies, one a fuzzy blue spot and the other similar to the larger galaxy, all against a black background.
This deep galaxy field from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) shows an arrangement of 10 distant galaxies marked by eight white...
A deep field image with many colorful galaxies and six-pointed stars sprinkled across deep black space. Small white circles scattered across the center and lower left mark ten galaxies that existed just 830 million years after the Big Bang.
A stunning smash-up of two spiral galaxies shines in infrared with the light of more than a trillion suns. Collectively...
A black, deep space image is dominated by what appears to be a large snowflake-like feature with a bright white core and 8 pinkish orange spikes. It is surrounded by additional wisps of pinkish orange and blue gas.
This image from the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the central portion of the...
Image showing wispy pink-purple filaments and a scattering of stars.
This image of NGC 6946 highlighting two supernovae, SN 2004et and SN 2017eaw, by Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Camera), shows compass...
Side-by-side images of two supernovae in space. Callout boxes highlight the two supernovae in greater detail. The one on the left appears as a white dot with a hexagonal, rainbow halo. The second is a light purple dot. Text is above and below.
This animation, a timelapse of images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, covers the time spanning just before impact at...
Animation of of Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system after DART impact. This red-hued view from JWST shows a bright center and darker streaks radiating from it. Faint wisps appear to flow outward from the center over the course of the animation.
James Webb Space Telescope has obtained an in-depth inventory of the deepest, coldest ices measured to date in a molecular cloud.
This graphic shows the transmission spectrum obtained by Webb observations of rocky exoplanet GJ 486 b. The science team’s analysis...
Graph showing the transmission spectrum of exoplanet GJ486b. The X-axis shows amount of light blocked, and the Y-axis shows wavelength of light. An orange wave begins at the upper left and a blue at the lower left. White dots show Webb data.
Graphic titled “Rocky Exoplanet LHS 475 b Atmosphere Composition, NIRSpec Bright Object Time-Series Spectroscopy.” The graphic shows the transmission spectrum of the rocky exoplanet LHS 475 b captured using Webb's NIRSpec mode.
This image of Uranus, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), shows compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference....
An image titled James Webb Space Telescope, Uranus, September 4, 2023. An image with a black background, a glowing orb near the center surrounded by rings. There are smudges that are background galaxies scattered throughout the image and several bright blue point sources that are the planet’s moons. At the bottom left are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The north arrow points in the 12 o’clock direction. The east arrow points toward 6 o’clock. Below the image is a color key showing which filters were used to create the image and which visible-light color is assigned to each infrared-light filter. From left to right, Webb NIRCam filters are F140M (blue), F210M (cyan), F300M (yellow), and F460M (orange). A scale bar at the lower right of the image is about one-seventh the total width of the image, and text below it reads 16 arcseconds.
Wolf-Rayet stars are known to be efficient dust producers, and the Mid-Infrared Instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows...
A large, bright star shines from the center with smaller stars scattered throughout the image. A clumpy cloud of material surrounds the central star, with more material above and below than on the sides.
In this mosaic image stretching 340 light-years across, Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) displays the Tarantula Nebula star-forming region in a...
Swirling reds, whites, and light yellows mix around in front of a starry sky.
Images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveal large amounts of dust within Supernova 2004et and Supernova 2017eaw. These supernovae...
Side-by-side images of two supernovae in space. Callout boxes highlight the two supernovae in greater detail. The one on the left appears as a white dot with a hexagonal, rainbow halo. The second is a light purple dot.
Images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope reveal large amounts of dust within Supernova 2004et and Supernova 2017eaw. These supernovae...
Side-by-side images of two supernovae in space. Callout boxes highlight the two supernovae in greater detail. The one on the left appears as a white dot with a hexagonal, rainbow halo. The second is a light purple dot.
This image of Jupiter from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) shows stunning details of the majestic planet...
Jupiter dominates the black background of space. The image is a composite, and shows Jupiter in enhanced color, featuring the planet’s famous Great Red Spot, which appears white with light pink around the edges. The planet is striated with swirling horizontal stripes of green, periwinkle, light pink, and cream. Horizontally across the equator is a wide cream-colored band, whose height extends about 1/7 of the planet. This is the planet’s equatorial zone. The stripes across the planet interact and mix at their edges. Along both of the northern and southern poles, the planet glows in green. Bright red auroras glow just above the planet’s surface at both poles.
Captured in infrared light by the Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), the seemingly three-dimensional “Cosmic Cliffs” showcases Webb’s capabilities to peer through...
an undulating, translucent star-forming region in the Carina Nebula is shown in this Webb image, hued in ambers and blues; foreground stars with diffraction spikes can be seen, as can a speckling of background points of light through the cloudy nebula
Spectra of K2-18 b, obtained with Webb’s NIRISS (Near-Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph) and NIRSpec (Near-Infrared Spectrograph), display an abundance...
The graphic shows Webb's spectra of the exoplanet K2-18 b. Magenta, red and green vertical columns across the plot indicate signatures of methane, carbon dioxide, and dimethyl sulfide. Behind the graph is an illustration of the planet and its star.
This graph compares the measured brightness of TRAPPIST-1 c to simulated brightness data for three different scenarios. The measurement (red...
Graphic Rocky Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c Emission Spectra, MIRI Time-Series Photometry (F1500W) of the brightness of 15-micron light plotted on an xy graph in percent eclipse depth vs. wavelength in microns, with 3 simulated emission spectra for comparison.
In this artist concept, the young star SZ Chamaeleontis (SZ Cha) is surrounded by a disk of dust and gas...
Looking in from the outer edge of a dusty, spinning disk surrounding a bright central star, which is illustrated as an indistinct bright region in the center of the disk. Rays of light emanate from the central area. A dark gap in the disk appears between the bright core and the dusty, hazy outer regions, which build up slightly as you move outward, so that the core appears sunken. The outer disk has some bands of varying thickness, in varying shades of orange.
This image of galaxy cluster MACS0416 highlights one particular gravitationally lensed background galaxy, which existed about 3 billion years after...
A field of galaxies on the black background of space. At center left, a particularly prominent linear feature stretches vertically. It is outlined by a white box, and a lightly shaded wedge leads to an enlarged view at the bottom right. A spot near the middle of the feature is labeled 'Mothra.'
This image provides a side-by-side comparison of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) as captured by NASA’s James Webb Space...
A comparison between two images, one on the left (labeled NIRCam), and on the right (labeled MIRI), separated by a white line. Both are a square image rotated clockwise about 45 degrees, with solid black in the top left, top right, bottom left, and bottom right corners. On the left, the image is a circular-shaped cloud of gas and dust with complex structure. The inner shell is made of bright pink and orange filaments that look like tiny pieces of shattered glass. Around the exterior of the inner shell are curtains of wispy gas that look like campfire smoke. The white smoke-like material also fills the cavity of the inner shell, with structures shaped like large bubbles. Outside the nebula, there are also clumps of yellow dust. On the right, is the same nebula in different light. The curtains of material outside the inner shell glow orange instead of white. The inner shell looks more mottled, and is a muted pink. At center right, a greenish loop extends from the right side of the ring into the central cavity.
The seven galaxies highlighted in this James Webb Space Telescope image have been confirmed to be at a distance that...
Various multi-color galaxies on a black background, with specific close-ups of 7 faint red galaxies in a column on right
A delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope....
A close-in image of a spiral galaxy, showing its core and part of a spiral arm. Thousands of tiny stars that make up the galaxy can be seen. The stars are most dense in a whitish bar that forms the core, and less dense out from that towards the arm.
This spectrum shows data from the protoplanetary disk termed XUE 1, which is located in the star cluster Pismis 24....
Graphic titled “XUE 1 Irradiated Protoplanetary Disk, MIRI Medium -Resolution Spectroscopy” shows a graph of brightness versus wavelength from 4.95 to 5.15 microns, with carbon monoxide peaks highlighted.
This image of the Cartwheel and its companion galaxies is a composite from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument...
A large pink, speckled galaxy resembling a wheel with with a small, inner oval, with dusty blue in between on the right. Two smaller spiral galaxies about the same size are to the left, all against a black background.
This new infrared image of NGC 346 from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) traces emission from cool...
The lower half of this image contains arcs of bluish material that form a boat-like shape. One end of these arcs points to the top right of the image, while the other end points toward the bottom left. Another plume of blue filaments expands from the center to the top left, resembling the mast of a sailboat. Within and extending beyond the boat shape are translucent curtains of pink, which appear atop the boat shape as well and cover most of the image. Stars are noticeably scarce. A couple dozen bright pink patches with six short diffraction spikes are scattered within the blue filaments. Many faint blue dots, or stars, also speckle the background, which is black or dark gray.
The inner region of the Orion Nebula as seen by the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam instrument.
By analyzing new observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a team led by Simon Lilly of ETH Zürich in...
A black background with stars shining throughout that range in size and color from white to gold and almost orange.
A spectrum of the protoplanetary disk of PDS 70, obtained with Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), displays a number of emission...
Graphic titled PDS 70 Inner Disk; Emission Spectrum. The graphic shows a spectrum in the form of a graph of the Brightness of Light on the vertical y-axis versus Wavelength of Light in microns on the horizontal x-axis.
These Webb images show a part of the Orion Nebula known as the Orion Bar. The largest image, on the...
3 panels, left, nebula with two stars and multi-hued clouds divided diagonally. Top-right of same area, but upper left region is red, yellow and green, the lower right region is dark blue. Lower right, image of a yellow and orange blob.
NGC 346, shown here in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a dynamic star...
Star cluster NGC 346 appears as a glittery gold and purple splash of color against a black, star-sprinkled backdrop. Shaped a bit like a dove, the cluster is translucent lavender and lilac, with gold and white edges.
Contrasting data from NASA’s James Webb and Spitzer space telescopes show change in the disk surrounding the star SZ Chamaeleontis...
Infographic titled SZ Chamaeleontis, Neon Gas in Protoplanetary Disk. Text at top right reads MIRI, Medium Resolution Spectroscopy. Two spectra lines are compared, labeled in a key as yellow being Webb 2023, and white being Spitzer 2008. Behind the spectra an illustration of a protoplanetary disk shows through, with a very bright center. Two squiggly lines are compared, with yellow, the Webb data, shown on top of the Spitzer data. Just before 13 microns on the X axis, a green column highlights a tall vertical spike in both spectra. They are labeled Neon, N E Roman numeral two. Between 15 and 16 microns, a purple column highlights a shorter vertical spike in the Spitzer spectrum, which is contrasted with a very small peak in the Webb spectrum. This purple column, and the peaks it highlights, are labeled Neon, N E Roman numeral three. See extended description for more.
This artist’s concept shows what exoplanet K2-18 b could look like based on science data. K2-18 b, an exoplanet 8.6...
This artist illustration shows a blue planet on the right, with its small, glowing red star in the lower left. Between them is another planet, a tiny white crescent in the distance.
Astronomers estimate 50,000 sources of near-infrared light are represented in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Their light...
A crowded galaxy field on a black background, with one large star dominating the image just right of center. Three areas are concentrated with larger white hazy blobs on the left, lower right, and upper right above the single star.
A green pea galaxy imaged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is shown alongside an infrared picture of an early...
A round green galaxy seen nearby is compared to a small red dot seen in the infrared by the James Webb Space Telescope. A scale bar shows a distance of 4,000 light-years for both.
In this image, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows a water vapor plume jetting from the southern pole of Saturn’s...
Two-part graphic shows a clearer image of a bright white circular moon at top left in a box. It is labeled Enceladus (Cassini). The majority of the graphic shows Webbs image, which appears pixelated.
Four mercury-cadmium-telluride detectors for Webb’s NIRCam instrument, which capture light in the 0.6 – 2.5 µm range. Ames led development...
Four NIRCam mercury-cadmium-telluride detectors mounted into a focal plan module.
This image of Comet 238P/Read was captured by the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope on...
In the center of a black image, a small glowing, hazy point glows white, surrounded by blue that trails off to the lower right.
This illustration shows what exoplanet WASP-39 b could look like, based on current understanding of the planet. WASP-39 b is...
Illustration of a planet and its star on an empty black background. The planet is large, in the foreground at the center and the star is smaller, in the background at the upper left.
Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) images objects in the near-infrared range from 0.6 to 5 microns, so Neptune does not appear...
Neptune as seen by the Webb telescope, shimmering and opalescent against a black sky, with whitish rings.
This image taken by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) shows a part of the Orion Nebula known as the Orion Bar....
Billowy clouds divided from lower left to upper right. Left, the clouds are various shades of blue with orange wisps throughout. Right, clouds vary from bright orange-red to brown from left to right. Two bright stars with eight diffraction spikes.
Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured this detailed image of SN 1987A (Supernova 1987A), which has been annotated to highlight key...
Infographic labeling the details for SN 1987A.
This image from the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the central portion of the...
Image of wispy pink-purple hair-like filaments and a scattering of stars, with three image details pulled out in square boxes stacked vertically along the right.
The atmospheric composition of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-39 b has been revealed by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope....
An infographic titled "Hot Gas Giant Exoplanet Wasp-39 B Atmosphere Compositions" that shows four graphs from Webb's different instruments.
A research team led by Brittany Miles of the University of Arizona used two instruments known as spectrographs aboard the...
Graphic titled “Exoplanet VHS 1256 b Emission Spectrum.” Top right reads NIRSpec and MIRI, IFU Medium-Resolution Spectroscopy. Spectrum is plotted on a jagged, downward-trending graph with labels for water, carbon monoxide, methane, and silicates.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s new view of Cassiopeia A (Cas A) in near-infrared light is giving astronomers hints at...
Cassiopeia A, a circular-shaped cloud of gas and dust with complex structure. The inner shell is made of bright pink and orange filaments studded with clumps and knots that look like tiny pieces of shattered glass. Around the exterior of the inner shell, particularly at the upper right, there are curtains of wispy gas that look like campfire smoke. The white smoke-like material also appears to fill the cavity of the inner shell, featuring structures shaped like large bubbles. Around and within the nebula, there are various stars seen as points of blue and white light. Outside the nebula, there are also clumps of yellow dust, with a particularly large clump at the bottom right corner that appears to have very detailed striations.
At the longer wavelengths of light captured by its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), Webb focuses on the area surrounding the central...
Swirls of white, blue, and pink against a starry background.
A delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope....
A close-in image of a spiral galaxy, showing its core and part of a spiral arm. A few bright stars are visible throughout it, concentrated in the barred core.
Jupiter has a layered atmosphere, and this illustration displays how NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is uniquely capable of collecting...
A portion of the graphic that displays wind speeds on Jupiter at different altitudes. The portion of this graphic shows the ends of three arrows that travel across the graphic from the left to the right. The top most arrow (colored in sky blue) extends the farthest right to about 3/4 the way across the graphic, the middle arrow (colored in periwinkle) extends to a little less than halfway across the graphic, and the bottom arrow (colored in light grey) extends to about 1/4 the way across the graphic. Extending out below each arrow is a cone of the same color to indicate the +/- error margin. There is Webb's image of Jupiter in the background of the graphic.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope offers dramatically different views of the Southern Ring Nebula. Each image combines near- and mid-infrared...
Two views of the same nebula shown side by side. Both show a misshapen oval nebula. The left image shows an almost solid white oval. The right image shows a large translucent pink-and-red irregular oval, and wavy patterns that extend all around the edges.
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope reveals intricate details of the Herbig Haro object 797 (HH 797). Herbig-Haro objects are...
In the lower half of the image is a narrow, horizontal nebula that stretches from edge to edge. It is brightly coloured with more variety on its right side. In the upper half there is a glowing point with multi-coloured light radiating from it in all directions. A bright star with long diffraction spikes lies along the right edge, and a few smaller stars are spread around. The background is covered in a thin haze.
Slice of image taken out of artist’s concept that compares two types of typical, planet-forming disks around newborn, Sun-like stars....
Banner Slice image taken out of artist’s concept compares two types of typical, planet-forming disks around newborn, Sun-like stars. On the left is a compact disk with no rings or gaps. On the right is an extended disk with rings and gaps. The compact disk is considerably smaller than the extended disk. Both the right and left illustrations have a bright yellow center indicative of a newly formed star. In both, the yellow center is surrounded by a swirling, orange disk. On the left, the compact disk appears unbroken by any gaps or rings. On the right, the extended disk features two, thick, mottled, orange rings surrounded by two, large, almost black gaps. The central portion of the extended disk has an outer region of orange surrounding a bright yellow center.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has returned extraordinarily detailed near-infrared images of galaxies that existed when the universe was only...
Six galaxies appear in boxes, three by two. All carry an EIGER label at top left. The galaxies look like faint smudges: faint paintbrush strokes with dots, or small points of light. Most appear in pinks and reds, though a few contain some purple or blue.
This image shows where the James Webb Space Telescope will observe the sky within the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, which...
This image shows where the James Webb Space Telescope will observe the sky within the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, which consists of two fields.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s high resolution, near-infrared look at Herbig-Haro 211 reveals exquisite detail of the outflow of a...
At the center is a thin horizontal pinkish cloud known as Herbig-Haro 211 that is uneven with rounded ends, and tilted from bottom left to top right. It takes up about two-thirds of the length of this angle, but is thinner and longer at the opposite angle. At its center is a dark spot. On either side of the dark spot, there are orangish yellow wisps that extend to light blue wisps. Within the center of those clouds, a pink fluffy streak runs through each lobe. At the ends of each lobe, pink becomes the dominant color. The lobe to the left is fatter. The right lobe is thinner, and ends in a smaller pink semi-circle. Just off the edge of this lobe is a slightly smaller pink semicircle, then a pink sponge-like blog. The background contains several bright stars, each with eight diffraction spikes extending out from the central bright point.
A series of light curves from Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) shows the change in brightness of three different wavelengths (colors)...
Graphs of relative brightness of 3 different wavelengths of light versus time. Top graph forms a U-shaped valley showing a period of decreased brightness. The valley floor shows that the amount of dimming differs for the 3 different wavelengths.
A transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-39 b captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) July 10, 2022,...
Graph of amount of light blocked versus wavelength of light with data points and a model, showing a broad, prominent peak labeled “Carbon Dioxide, C O 2”.
This artist’s concept shows what the hot rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 c could look like based on this work. TRAPPIST-1 c,...
Illustration of a large rocky exoplanet in the foreground, a smaller rocky exoplanet in the background, and their red dwarf star in the center.
Examine the straight, brightly-lit lines that pierce through the rings of gas and dust around the edges of the Southern...
The Southern Ring Nebula shown at left with two large boxes overlaid zooming in on different portions of the nebula. All are a large translucent pink-and-red irregular oval, and wavy patterns that extend all around the edges.
Researchers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) have discovered a high-speed jet stream sitting over Jupiter’s equator,...
The infographic shows Webb’s image of Jupiter at the left. The planet is striated with swirling horizontal stripes of neon turquoise, periwinkle, and cream. Below the planet, the NIRCam filters and their respective colors assigned are listed – F164N in blue, F212N in green, and F360M in red. On the right side of the infographic, there are 8 separate images. Two of those images are horizontal and span the entire right half of the infographic. The top horizontal image is labeled F212N 10:52 UT and the bottom is labeled F212N 20:55 UT. They are zoomed-in pullouts from a section of Jupiter’s equator—outlined in a white box on the image of the planet on the left. Both of these images are white and grey with horizontal wispy clouds. There are 6 smaller boxes in between the two horizontal images—3 rows of 2. The first column of the boxes is outlined in orange, the second column purple and the third yellow. Each of the smaller images correspond to orange, purple, and yellow boxes placed along the horizontal images.
This artist’s concept depicts the planet GJ 1214 b, a “mini-Neptune” with what is likely a steamy, hazy atmosphere. A...
This artist’s concept depicts the planet GJ 1214 b
A delicate tracery of dust and bright star clusters threads across this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope....
A close-in image of a spiral galaxy, showing its core and part of a spiral arm. Thousands of stars that make it up can be seen, most dense in a whitish bar that forms its core.
At left, the quasar SDSS J165202.64+172852.3 is highlighted in a Hubble Space Telescope image taken in visible and near-infrared light....
Infographic titled “Motions of Gas Around an Extremely Red Quasar; Hubble ACS and WFC3 Imaging and Webb NIRSpec IFU Spectroscopy.”
These two images are of the dusty debris disk around AU Mic, a red dwarf star located 32 light-years away...
two horizontal images of the same object, the dusty debris disk around AU Mic, a red dwarf star. The disks look like two glowing horizontal lines, split evenly with circle with a star in the middle. The top is blue and the bottom is orange.
This image from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows a small region of the Orion Nebula. At the center of this...
A hazy nebula of colorful material. Top left is green, red and yellow with two small stars and a darker gap region. A wall of cloudy material crosses diagonally towards the bottom right with dark blue filaments and more dark gaps in the bottom corner.
Stare deeply at this vast landscape. It was stitched together from multiple images captured by the James Webb Space Telescope...
About 100,000 galaxies appear in this thin horizontal, stitched together view. The coverage isnt continuous, so the areas in between Webbs images are black. About 20 square images were taken to form this mosaic.
diagram of four planets, left to right in size order, smallest to largest: blue-hued Earth, blue-hued illustration of an exoplanet, tan-hued illustration of an exoplanet, blue-hued Neptune
This image of the dusty debris disk surrounding the young star Fomalhaut is from Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). It reveals...
An image labeled James Webb Space Telescope: Fomalhaut. An orange oval extends from the 7 o’clock to 1 o’clock positions. It features a prominent outer ring, a darker gap, an intermediate ring, a narrower dark gap, and a bright inner disk.
Illustration of a planet and its star on a black background. The planet is large, in the foreground at the center and the star is smaller and bright yellowish-white in the background and also at the center.
Graphic titled “Rocky Exoplanet LHS 475 b Transit Light Curve, NIRSpec Bright Object Time-Series Spectroscopy.” Behind the graph is an illustration of the planet and its star.
Approximate outlines help to define the features in the Sagittarius C (Sgr C) region. Astronomers are studying data from NASA’s...
A crowded region of space, full of stars and colorful clouds, more than twice as wide as it is tall, with features outlined in the image in different colors. A key on the right indicates what each outline is highlighting. From the top of the key down: an orange circle next to text, protostar cluster. An irregular green dashed-line shape with text, infrared-dark cloud. A straight red dashed-line with text, needle structures. An irregular yellow dotted-line shape with text, ionized hydrogen. See extended description for more details on the image.
A trio of faint objects (circled) captured in the James Webb Space Telescope’s deep image of the galaxy cluster SMACS...
Amidst a crowded field containing galaxies of all shapes and sizes, three boxes highlight three tiny red ones. Insets show magnified images of these young galaxies, which are circled in green. The title reads "Early 'peas' discovered behind SMACS 0723."
Illustration showing what exoplanet 55 Cancri e could look like, based on current understanding of the planet. 55 Cancri e...
Illustration bright red flaming sunlike planet on the right only partially in the frame, and slightly glowing red planet on the left.
This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument highlights Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) 230307A and its associated...
Bright galaxies and other light sources in various sizes and shapes are scattered across a black swath of space: small points, hazy elliptical-like smudges with halos, and spiral-shaped blobs. The objects vary in color: white, blue-white, yellow-white, and orange-red. Toward the center right is a blue-white spiral galaxy seen face-on that is larger than the other light sources in the image. The galaxy is labeled “former home galaxy.” Toward the upper left is a small red point, which has a white circle around it and is labeled “GRB 230307A kilonova.”
This light curve shows the change in brightness of the TRAPPIST-1 system as the innermost planet, TRAPPIST-1 b, moves behind...
Infographic titled “Rocky Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b Secondary Eclipse Light Curve, MIRI Time-Series Photometry (F1500W).” The infographic shows that the brightness of the system decreases as the planet moves behind the star.
Infographic ICY Pebble Drift: This graphic is an interpretation of data from Webb’s MIRI, the Mid-Infrared Instrument, which is sensitive...
Infographic titled “Protoplanetary Disks: Icy Pebble Drift; MIRI Medium Resolution Spectroscopy” compares the structure of a compact protoplanetary disk (left) to the structure of an extended protoplanetary disk (right). View description for details.
Three faint, small, distant galaxies (in boxes) appear in the James Webb Space Telescope’s deep image of the galaxy cluster...
Galaxies of different shapes, sizes, and colors appear against the black backdrop of space. Three white boxes appear one at a time, showing the locations of a trio of small, faint, red galaxies seen as they were up to 13.1 billion years ago.
The spiral arms of NGC 7496 are filled with cavernous bubbles and shells overlapping one another in this image from...
A galaxy spiral with a bright, star-like burst red center with light blue web like spirals throughout.
This infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was taken for the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey, or...
Thousands of small galaxies scattered on a black background. Some are spirals while others are blobby ellipticals. A few spirals are bluish, but most of the galaxies appear yellow or red. A handful of stars display eight-point diffraction spikes.
This video tours the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant that lies 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. Despite this...
This compass image shows a deep galaxy field imaged by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) for the ASPIRE program. The field...
A deep field image with many colorful galaxies and stars in black space. Text at the top says "James Webb Space Telescope: ASPIRE J0305-3150". Text at the bottom says "NIRCAM Filters F115W, F200W, F356W".
Illustration comparing rocky exoplanets LHS 3844 b and 55 Cancri e to Earth and Neptune. Both 55 Cancri e and...
Illustration comparing rocky exoplanets LHS 3844 b and 55 Cancri e to Earth and Neptune. The planets are arranged from left to right in order of increasing radius.
Wolf-Rayet stars are known to be efficient dust producers, and the Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope...
A large, bright star shines from the center with smaller stars scattered throughout the image. A clumpy cloud of material surrounds the central star, with more material above and below than on the sides.
This illustration shows what the hot rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b could look like based on this work. TRAPPIST-1 b, the...
Illustration of a rocky planet and its red dwarf star on a black background. The planet is large, in the foreground on the lower right and the star is smaller, in the background at the upper left. The planet is gray. The star has a bright orange-red glow.
This illustration conceptualizes the swirling clouds identified by the James Webb Space Telescope in the atmosphere of exoplanet VHS 1256...
Artist illustration of an orange planet with swirling patterns (left) that orbits two distant bright stars (top right), set against a dark speckled background.
A pinkish planet and its star on an empty black background, with a bright white sun in the background.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope first deep field image is galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. This deep field, taken by Webb’s...
distant galaxies appear as bright glowing spots in this Webb telescope image, with some smeared by gravitational lensing; foreground stars appear bright with six-pointed diffraction spikes, owing to the shape of Webb's mirrors
The protostar within the dark cloud L1527, shown in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam),...
An hourglass shaped cloud of material burst out from the bright center, with the orange, semi-opaque gas cloud on top and orange fading to a bright blue semi-opaque gas cloud on the bottom, all against a black sky speckled with white spots.
For the first time, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope have taken simultaneous observations of the same...
Views of Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system after DART impact. Hubble's (left) shows a bright, white-blue center and streaks of darker blue emanating outward. Webb's red-hued view (right) is similar to Hubble's, with features appearing brighter overall.
New imagery from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is giving scientists their first look at high resolution into the fine...
A galaxy spiral with a bright, white center. At the top right and lower left are brighter spots of red, with light blue web like spirals throughout.
Emission Spectrum – Water Abundance: This graphic compares the spectral data for warm and cool water in the GK Tau...
Graphic entitled “Protoplanetary Disks GK Tau and CI Tau: Water Abundance” is a two-tiered spectral graph. The top graph compares the spectral data for warm and cool water in the compact GK Tau disk with the extended CI Tau disk. The bottom graph shows the excess cool water data in the compact GK Tau disk minus the cool water data in the extended CI Tau disk. View description for details.
In this image, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s instruments are revealing details into how one of Saturn’s moon’s feeds a...
Infographic titled Saturns Moon Enceladus; Water Emission Spectrum. The infographic shows a diagram of Saturn, Enceladus, and its torus at the top, the NIRSpec image of Enceladus at the bottom left, and the spectra of the NIRSpec field of view.
This graphic shows a map of Europa’s surface with NIRCam (Near Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in...
Four square panels appear in a horizontal strip. The first is a blue-and-white sphere against a black background and the other three are the sphere with darker blue patches and two large white patches in the southern hemisphere.
This wide-field image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the planet amid a...
An image with a black background. The planet Uranus is a glowing orb near the center surrounded by rings. The planet appears blue with a large, white patch taking up the right half. The patch is whitest at the center, then fades into blue at it expands from right to left. A thin outline of Uranus is also white. Around the planet is a system of nested rings. There are faint orange and off-white smudges, some oval, some circular, that are background galaxies scattered throughout the image. Several bright blue point sources closer to Uranus are the planet’s moons. There is also a bright star at the left of the field, with 8 diffraction spikes.
Two of the farthest galaxies seen to date are captured in these Webb Space Telescope pictures of the outer regions...
Image collage labeled "Abell 2744 GLASS JWST/NIRCAM." Two large frames, left and right, with countless white stars, interspersed with yellow and orange galaxies of various shapes on a black background. Two smaller center images are close ups two galaxies.
The NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s reveals a portion of the Milky Way’s dense core...
A crowded region of space, full of stars and colorful clouds, more than twice as wide as it is tall. A funnel-shaped region of space appears darker than its surroundings with fewer stars. It is wider at the top edge of the image, narrowing towards the bottom. Toward the narrow end of this dark region a small clump of red and white appears to shoot out streamers upward and left. A large, bright cyan-colored area surrounds the lower portion of the funnel-shaped dark area, forming a rough U shape. The cyan-colored area has needle-like, linear structures and becomes more diffuse in the center of the image. The right side of the image is dominated by clouds of orange and red, with a purple haze.
Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured this detailed image of SN 1987A (Supernova 1987A). At the center, material ejected from the...
A pale red ring made up of small white circles surrounds a bright blue spot in the center. Three bright spots are on the outside of the ring, all against a black background speckled with stars.
Global temperature map of the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b. This map was made based on the brightness of 5-...
This artist’s concept shows what the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b could look like. WASP-43 b is a Jupiter-sized planet...
Illustration showing a hazy blue planet against the black background of space. The planet is in the left side of the frame. The axis is tilted roughly 20 degrees counter-clockwise from vertical. The eastern side (right half) is lit by a star out of view and the western side (left half) is in shadow. The terminator (the boundary between the day and night sides) is fuzzy. There are white patchy clouds visible on the dayside, near the terminator, along the equator, that appear to be originating from the nightside.
This phase curve, captured by the MIRI low resolution spectrometer on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, shows the change in...
Graphic titled Hot Gas-Giant Exoplanet WASP-43 b: Phase Curve 1 ¼ Orbits; MIRI Low-Resolution Spectroscopy. y-axis: Brightness of Planet + Star (5 to 12 micron emitted light), ranging from dimmer at bottom to brighter at top. x-axis: Elapsed Time (Hours) ranging from 0 to 24 in increments of 4. Thousands of orange data points form a thick, clear pattern, with no outliers and very little scatter. Curve forms a subtle sine wave with crests from 2-4 hours and 20-24 hours, and trough in the middle from 10-14 hours. Curve interrupted by 3 prominent U-shaped valleys: 2 shallow valleys at the wave crests at 2 hours and 22 hours, and a very deep valley in the middle of the trough at 12 hours. The base of the shallow valleys at 2 and 22 hours are labeled “starlight only,” with tops of valley walls on either side labeled “dayside + star.” Center of deep valley at 12 hours is labeled “nightside + partially-blocked star,” with tops of valley walls on either side labeled “nightside + star.”
This set of maps shows the temperature of the visible side of the hot gas-giant exoplanet WASP-43 b, as it...
Graphic titled “Hot Gas-giant Exoplanet WASP-43 b: Temperature Maps; MIRI Low-Resolution Spectroscopy” showing purple to yellow temperature maps of planet’s telescope-facing hemisphere at 4 orbital positions. Gray line with arrows pointing counterclockwise forms orbital path around star. Temperature scale at lower left, labeled in °F and K, grades from purple at left to yellow at right: 1,000°F is purple; 1,500°F pink; 2,000°F orange; 2,500°F yellow. 1,000 K dark pink. 1,500 K orange-yellow. Planet behind star, labeled “Permanent Dayside”: Hemisphere is yellow in center, grading to orange at edges. Planet left of star: Color grades from yellow at right edge facing star to purple at left edge facing away. Planet in front of star, labeled “Permanent Nightside” is purple slightly right of center, grading to dark pink at edges. Planet right of star: Color grades from yellow at left edge facing star to purple at right edge facing away.
This image of the Horsehead Nebula from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope focuses on a portion of the horse’s “mane.”...
The image is more than half-filled from the bottom up by a small section of the Horsehead Nebula. Streaky clouds of white, gray and blue resemble a foamy wave crashing at the seashore. The nebula stops at a textured, fuzzy-looking edge that follows a slight curve. Above it a small number of distant stars and galaxies lie on a dark but multi-colored background.
This image showcases three views of one of the most distinctive objects in our skies, the Horsehead Nebula. The first...
A horizontal collage of three images of the Horsehead Nebula. The left image is labeled “Euclid (Visible-Infrared)” and shows a dusty red-brown nebula at bottom with wispy blue clouds in the middle and the black background of space at top, with stars throughout. A portion of the nebula shaped like the head of a seahorse juts upward from the thickest part of the nebula into the blue wisps. A small box around it connects to the second image labeled “Hubble (Infrared)”, where the Nebula is zoomed in on. Here the central part of the horse’s head remains a dark, dusty red, while the outer portions become a translucent, ethereal gray. At the top of the horse’s head, a box connects to the third image labeled “Webb (Infrared)”. A clumpy dome of blueish-gray clouds rises about a third of the way into the image, capped with translucent red wisps and, at top, a single, prominent star.
This image of the Horsehead Nebula from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope focuses on a portion of the horse’s “mane”...
A clumpy dome of blueish-gray clouds rises about a third of the way from the bottom. Above it, streaky, translucent red wisps brush upward to about halfway up the image. The top half of the image is the black background of space with one prominent, bright white star with Webb’s 8-point diffraction spikes. Additional stars and galaxies are scattered throughout the image, although very few are seen through the thick clouds at bottom and all are significantly smaller than the largest star.
On the left is the starburst galaxy M82 as observed by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in 2006. The small box...
Left: Messier 82 as imaged by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. Hour-glass-shaped red plumes of gas are shooting outward from above and below a bright blue, disk-shaped center of a galaxy. This galaxy is surrounded by many white stars and set against the black background of space. A small square highlights the section that the image on the right shows in greater detail. White text at bottom reads "Hubble." Right: A section of Messier 82 as imaged by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. An edge-on spiral starburst galaxy with a bright white, glowing core set against the black background of space. A white band of the edge-on disk extends from lower left to upper right. Dark brown tendrils of dust are scattered thinly along this band. Many white points in various sizes – stars or star clusters – are scattered throughout the image, but are most heavily concentrated toward the center. Many clumpy, red filaments extend vertically above and below the galaxy’s plane. White text at bottom reads "Webb."
This image at a wavelength of 15 microns was taken by MIRI (the Mid-Infrared Instrument) on NASA’s James Webb Space...
An image of a region of a molecular cloud. The orange cloud is dense and bright close to the top of the image, like rolling clouds, and grows darker and more wispy toward the bottom and in the top corner. One bright star with six short diffraction spikes and several dimmer stars are visible as light spots among the clouds.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) has identified a variety of complex organic molecules that are present in...
Graphic titled “NGC 1333 IRAS 2A Protostar, MIRI Medium -Resolution Spectroscopy” shows a graph of optical depth on the y-axis versus wavelength of light in microns on the x-axis. The x-axis ranges from 6.8 microns on the left to 8.6 microns on the right, labeled in even increments of 0.2 microns. The y-axis ranges from 0 on the top to about 0.65 on the bottom, with labeled tick marks at 0.2, 0.4, and 0.6. A jagged white line with several prominent valleys extends horizontally. Vertical bands in different colors mark different wavelength regions and are labeled with molecular names and formulas.
This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) of star-forming region NGC 604 shows how stellar winds...
At the center of the image is a nebula on the black background of space. The nebula is comprised of clumpy, red, filamentary clouds. At the center-right of the red clouds is a large cavernous bubble, and at the center of the bubble there is an opaque blueish glow with speckles of stars. At the edges of the bubble, the dust is white. There are several other smaller cavernous bubbles at the top of the nebula, including two tiny cavities at the top center of the image. There are thousands of stars that fill the surrounding area outside the nebula, most of them are yellow or white. At 11 o’clock and 6 o’clock there are extremely bright stars with 8 diffraction spikes. There are also some smaller, red stars and a few disk-shaped galaxies scattered across the image.
This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) of star-forming region NGC 604 shows how large clouds...
At the center of the image is a nebula on the black background of space. The nebula is comprised of wispy filaments of light blue clouds. At the center-right of the blue clouds is a large cavernous bubble. The bottom left edge of this cavernous bubble is filled with hues of pink and white gas. There are several other smaller cavernous bubbles at the top of the nebula, including two tiny cavities at the top center of the image. There are hundreds of dim stars that fill the surrounding area of the nebula.
At the center of these side-by-side images is a special class of star used as a milepost marker for measuring...
A horizontal, two-panel image of pixelated, black-and-white star fields. The left image label is: “Webb Near-IR.” It holds a few dozen points of light of varying brightness. At the center of the image, a circle marks one bright point. The right image label is: “Hubble Near-IR.” It holds more indistinct, blurry patches whose overall brightness is similar to the more defined regions in the left image. At center, a circle marks a light gray pixel.
This image of NGC 5468, a galaxy located about 130 million light-years from Earth, combines data from the Hubble and...
A spiral galaxy with a small bar of bright-white stars at its core. Two main spiral arms extend outward from each end of the bar. They appear to fork into multiple branches beyond the galaxy's core. The spiral arms have a lavender hue. Bright-white and bright-red stars dot the galaxy. Reddish-brown dust lanes line the inner curves of the spiral arms.
This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument shows a portion of the GOODS-North field of...
A rectangular image with thousands of galaxies of various shapes and colors on the black background of space. Some are noticeably spirals, either face-on or edge-on, while others are blobby ellipticals. Many are too small to discern any structure. One prominent foreground star at top center features Webb’s signature 8-point diffraction spikes. At lower right, a small region is highlighted with a white box. Vertical lines extend upward like a cone to the bottom corners of a larger box at upper right, showing a zoomed in version of the highlighted area. The pullout features a galaxy labeled GN-z11, seen as a fuzzy yellow dot. Above it is another galaxy, seen as a fuzzy red oval.
This two-part graphic shows evidence of a gaseous clump of helium in the halo surrounding galaxy GN-z11. In the top...
A graphic labeled “Galaxy GN-z11, Pristine Gas Clump Near GN-z11.” The graphic is divided into two sections. The top half of the graphic features a rectangular image of a field of galaxies with two pullouts, the second of them labeled “Helium Two Detected.” The bottom half shows a single line graph.
Video still frame from a sonification of the Southern Ring Nebula. Two views of the same object, the Southern Ring...
Video still frame from a sonification of the Southern Ring Nebula. Two views of the same object, the Southern Ring Nebula, are shown side by side. Both feature black backgrounds speckled with tiny bright stars and distant galaxies. Both show the planetary nebula as a misshapen oval that is slightly angled from top left to bottom right. At left, the near-infrared image shows a bright white star with eight long diffraction spikes at the center. A large transparent teal oval surrounds the central star. Several red shells surround the teal oval, extending almost to the edges of the image. The red layers, which are wavy overall, look like they have very thin straight lines piercing through them. At right, the mid-infrared image shows two stars at the center very close to one another. The one at left is red, the one at right is light blue. The blue star has tiny diffraction spikes around it. A large translucent red oval surrounds the central stars. From the red oval, shells extend in a mix of colors.
The James Webb Space Telescope has observed the best evidence yet for emission from a neutron star at the site...
A three-panel image of a supernova remnant. The left panel is labeled “NIRCam” while the two right panels are labeled “MIRI M R S Argon two” (at top) and “NIRSpec I F U Argon six” (at bottom). At left, a mottled light pinkish-orange oval whose inner edge resembles a string of pearls. Within the oval is a dense blue-green cloud, shaped like a keyhole. Three stars with six-point diffraction patterns surround the oval. Above and below these structures, are very faint orange rings, which form a figure eight pattern. The center of the supernova remnant is surrounded by a white box with lines leading to the upper and lower right of the image, where two stacked panels show a bright orange ring with an orange dot in the middle. The upper panel is fuzzier and more blobby, while the bottom panel has more clearly defined edges around the ring and central dot.
These are examples of distant galaxies captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope in its CEERS Survey. Galaxies frequently appear...
Six galaxies appear in boxes, three by two. From top left to bottom right: The three galaxies in the top row are labeled, elongated appearance. All three galaxies appear to form thin lines that take up less than a quarter of the frame. The galaxy at top left has a horizontal thin line with two dots beneath it; the center galaxy is a short line from top left to bottom right made up of individual dots, with a haze toward the center-left; the right galaxy is the longest line angles from top left to bottom right, and several dim dots above it. Along the lower row, the galaxies at left and center, labeled disk-like appearances, have hazy spiral shapes, and each take up about half of the frame. The galaxy at lower right, labeled spherical appearance, looks like a bright dot centered in the frame and is far smaller.
This is an animation portraying the creation of the cat’s tail, as hypothesized by a team of astronomers. The cat’s...
This image from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows the star system Beta Pictoris. An edge-on disk of dusty debris generated...
Star system Beta Pictoris with labels and graphic overlays. A thin, elongated horizontal orange line appears at the center of the frame, extending almost to the edges. This is a debris disk seen edge-on. A white line traces over the orange debris disk and is labeled “main disk plane.” A thin blue-green disk is inclined about five degrees counterclockwise relative to the orange main disk and is highlighted by a blue-green line labeled “extended secondary disk.” Cloudy, translucent gray material is most prominent near the orange main debris disk. Some of the gray material forms a curved feature in the upper right and is marked with a yellow line labeled “cat’s tail.” The central star, represented as a small white star icon, is blocked by an instrument known as a coronagraph, which forms a large black circle at center and two small disks pointing to the upper left and lower right. The background of space is black. In the lower right corner is a white bar labeled “100 A U.”
Astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to study 12 cold brown dwarfs. Two of them – W1935 and W2220...
A graphic titled “Brown Dwarfs W1935 and W2220, Atmospheric Methane, NIRSpec Slit Spectroscopy.
This artist concept portrays the brown dwarf W1935, which is located 47 light-years from Earth. Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb...
An artist concept portrays a round, dark blue, gaseous object on a black, star-filled background.
Webb Telescopes view face-on of spiral galaxy NGC 4254.
Webb Telescopes view face-on of spiral galaxy NGC 4254.
Spiral galaxy NGC 2835 is 35 million light-years away in the constellation Hydra.
Webb’s image of NGC 2835 shows a densely populated face-on spiral galaxy anchored by its small central region, which is immediately engulfed in the orange spiral arms. A blue glow of stars begins at the core and spreads outward. Spiny orange spiral arms made of stars, gas, and dust start at the center and extend to the edges, rotating counterclockwise and taking up most of the area. Tiny pinpoints of blue light, which are stars or star clusters, are scattered across the image, but are easiest to spot where there appear to be black bubbles within the orange dust. The spiral arms of the galaxy are largely orange, ranging from dark to bright orange. In a few areas, there are bright orange patches of light within the orange spiral arms, mainly toward the outer edges of the spiral arms. Toward the bottom are some larger pink and blue points of light, some are likely background galaxies that appear like disks seen from the side.
Spiral galaxy NGC 1672 is 60 million light-years away in the constellation Dorado.
Webb’s image of the galaxy NGC 1672 shows a portion of a face-on barred spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which is circular and has a bright white point at the center with blue and then yellow circular regions around it, anchored to the right of center. A roughly horizontal bar structure made of a blue haze of stars and filamentary orange dust lanes tilts up slightly and takes up the majority of the image. Two spiny orange spiral arms made of stars, gas, and dust connect to the end of the bar and extend outward, rotating clockwise. The spiral arms are largely orange, ranging from dark to bright orange and extend beyond the edges of the image. They are brightest orange away from the bright central region at left and right, like knots of orange beads strung together. The spiral shape of the galaxy is less apparent in this view, with the arms looking more like irregular waves in an ocean’s tides. There are many more dark or black regions between where the orange gas and dust of the bar and spiral arms appear. Scattered across the scene are some bright blue pinpoints of light.
Spiral galaxy NGC 1566 is 60 million light-years away in the constellation Dorado.
Webb’s image of the galaxy NGC 1566 shows a densely populated face-on spiral galaxy anchored by its slightly oval central region, consisting of a core and small bar structure, which has a light blue haze of stars that covers about a quarter of the view. Two prominent spiny spiral arms made of stars, gas, and dust also start at the center, within the blue haze, and extend to the edges, rotating counterclockwise. The spiral arms of the galaxy are largely orange, ranging from dark to bright orange. The brightest areas of the arms are two large arcs that start at the central region and stretch up to the top and bottom. Scattered across the packed scene are innumerable bright blue pinpoints of light, which are stars spread throughout the galaxy. In areas where there is less orange, it is darker, and some dark regions look more circular. There are bright pink patches of light toward the outer regions of the spiral arms.
Spiral galaxy NGC 1512 is 30 million light-years away in the constellation Horologium.
Webb’s image of NGC 1512 shows a face-on barred spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which is circular and shows a bright white point at the center with blue and yellow circles around it. Outside the core is a large bar structure filled with a haze of blue stars, forming a rough parallelogram shape and taking up about a quarter of the area. The bar is crossed by orange filaments made of stars, gas, and dust that extend diagonally to the top left and bottom right. Outside this, the thick orange spiral arms form a rough oval, and within them there are smaller oval areas that appear black. The spiral arms are largely orange, ranging from dark to bright orange and extend beyond the edges of the image. There are many larger blue stars and slightly larger pink points of light spread throughout. Two larger foreground stars with at least six diffraction spikes are at top center and bottom center.
Spiral galaxy NGC 1385 is 30 million light-years away in the constellation Fornax.
Webb’s image of NGC 1385 shows a messy face-on spiral galaxy in shades of white, yellow, orange, and red. There’s a bright yellow arc-shaped region toward the center, but it is very difficult to see a spiral shape. Scattered across the scene are some bright blue pinpoints of light, but they appear more clearly in areas where it is dark gray or black, below and to the right of the yellow central arc in blobs, with some individual blue points of light across the image. There are many bright red or orange regions in the orange arms, speckled irregularly throughout. The edges of the scene are dark black, containing several very faint pink, blue, and red blobs.
Spiral galaxy NGC 1300 is 69 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus.
Webb’s image of NGC 1300 shows a face-on barred spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which is circular and shows a bright white point at the center with a light yellow circle around it. The central core is tiny compared to the rest of the galaxy. The core extends into the galaxy’s prominent diagonal bar structure, which is filled with a blue haze of stars. Orange dust filaments cross the bar, extending diagonally to the top and bottom, connecting the yellow circle in the central core to the galaxy’s spiral arms. There are two distinct orange spiral arms made of stars, gas, and dust that start at the edges of the bar and rotate counterclockwise. Together, the arm and bars form a backward S shape. The spiral arms are largely orange, ranging from dark to bright orange. Scattered across the packed scene are very few bright blue pinpoints of light. There are vast areas between where the orange spiral arms wrap that appear black. The top left and bottom right edges are dark black and there are some larger red and blue points of light, some that appear like disks seen from the side.
Spiral galaxy NGC 1087 is 80 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus.
Webb’s image of NGC 1087 shows a densely populated face-on spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which takes the shape of a short light yellow line that is about a fifth of the length of the galaxy. Filamentary spiral arms made of stars, gas, and dust start at the center and extend to the top and bottom edges, rotating clockwise. There is so much light in this region that the spiral arms of the galaxy look muddled. They are largely orange, ranging from dark to bright orange. Scattered across the packed scene are some bright blue pinpoints of light, but they appear more clearly in areas where it is dark gray or black. Several smaller “bubbles” where it’s black appears throughout the galaxy. The edges of the scene are dark black and there are some larger bright blue points of light, along with a few pink shapes, likely background galaxies.
Face-on spiral galaxy, NGC 628, is split diagonally in this image: The James Webb Space Telescope’s observations appear at top...
Two observations of a portion of the galaxy NGC 628 are split diagonally, with Webb’s observations at top left and Hubble’s at bottom right. The galaxy’s core is roughly centered and the galaxy’s arms appear to rotate counterclockwise. The spiraling filamentary structure looks somewhat like a cross section of a nautilus shell. In Webb’s image, the spiny spiral arms are composed of many filaments in shades of orange, with prominent dark gray or black “bubbles,” and there is a blue haze near the core. In Hubble’s image, the spiral arms are a mix of bright blue star clusters, pink star forming areas and dark brown dust lanes, and the core is a pale yellow.
Spiral galaxy NGC 628 is 32 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces.
Webb’s image of NGC 628 shows a densely populated face-on spiral galaxy anchored by its central region, which has a light blue haze that takes up about a quarter of the view. In this circular core is the brightest blue area. Within the core are populations of older stars, represented by many pinpoints of blue light. Spiny spiral arms made of stars, gas, and dust also start at the center, largely starting in the wider area of the blue haze. The spiral arms extend to the edges, rotating counterclockwise. The spiraling filamentary structure looks somewhat like a cross section of a nautilus shell. The arms of the galaxy are largely orange, ranging from dark to bright orange. Scattered across the packed scene are some additional bright blue pinpoints of light, which are stars spread throughout the galaxy. In areas where there is less orange, it is darker, and some dark regions look more circular. A prominent dark “bubble” appears to the top left of the blue core. And a wider, elliptical “bubble” to the bottom right.
The James Webb Space Telescope observed 19 nearby face-on spiral galaxies in near- and mid-infrared light as part of its...
Nineteen Webb images of face-on spiral galaxies are combined in a mosaic. Some appear within squares, and others horizontal or vertical rectangles. Many galaxies have blue hazes toward the centers, and all have orange spiral arms. Many have clear bar shaped-structures at their centers, but a few have spirals that begin at their cores. Some of the galaxies’ arms form clear spiral shapes, while others are more irregular. Some of the galaxies’ arms appear to rotate clockwise and others counterclockwise. Most galaxy cores are centered, but a few appear toward an image’s edge. Most galaxies appear to extend beyond the captured observations. The galaxies shown, listed in alphabetical order, are IC 5332, NGC 628, NGC 1087, NGC1300, NGC 1365, NGC 1385, NGC 1433, NGC 1512, NGC 1566, NGC 1672, NGC 2835, NGC 3351, NGC 3627, NGC 4254, NGC 4303, NGC 4321, NGC 4535, NGC 5068, and NGC 7496.
Researchers analyzing distant galaxies that show up in the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey from NASA’s James Webb...
In the far-left column are two galaxies that have been magnified. The top left galaxy appears circular and light pink with a slightly whiter central region, taking up less than one-sixth of the box. The bottom galaxy is elongated, stretching almost from top left to bottom right. It has a white line at the center that has a pink outline that transitions into and bluish edges at far left and right. Thin lines from each magnified galaxy point their appearances in the broader field. The top galaxy appears as a tiny dot at the upper center, and the bottom galaxy toward the left. Thousands of galaxies appear across most of this view, which is set against the black background of space. There are many overlapping objects at various distances. They include large, blue foreground stars, with Webb’s signature eight-pointed diffraction spikes, and white and pink spiral and elliptical galaxies. Numerous tiny red dots appear throughout the scene. This is a portion of a vast survey known in shorthand as CEERS.
This image from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows the star system Beta Pictoris. An edge-on disk of dusty debris generated...
Star system Beta Pictoris. A thin, elongated horizontal orange line appears at the center of the frame, extending almost to the edges. This is a debris disk seen edge-on. A thin blue-green disk is inclined about five degrees counterclockwise relative to the orange main disk. Cloudy, translucent gray material is most prominent near the orange main debris disk. Some of the gray material forms a curved feature in the upper right, resembling a cat’s tail. The central star, represented as a small white star icon, is blocked by an instrument known as a coronagraph, which forms a large black circle at center and two small disks pointing to the upper left and lower right. The background of space is black.
This artist concept portrays the brown dwarf W1935, which is located 47 light-years from Earth. Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb...
An artist concept portrays a round, dark blue, gaseous object on a black, star-filled background.
This wide-field image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the planet amid a...
An image with a black background. The planet Uranus is a glowing orb near the center surrounded by rings. The planet appears blue with a large, white patch taking up the right half. The patch is whitest at the center, then fades into blue at it expands from right to left. A thin outline of Uranus is also white. Around the planet is a system of nested rings. There are faint orange and off-white smudges, some oval, some circular, that are background galaxies scattered throughout the image. Several bright blue point sources closer to Uranus are the planet’s moons. There is also a bright star at the left of the field, with 8 diffraction spikes."
This image from the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope shows the central portion of the...
Image showing wispy pink-purple filaments and a scattering of stars.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s new view of Cassiopeia A (Cas A) in near-infrared light is giving astronomers hints at...
Cassiopeia A, a circular-shaped cloud of gas and dust with complex structure. The inner shell is made of bright pink and orange filaments studded with clumps and knots that look like tiny pieces of shattered glass. Around the exterior of the inner shell, particularly at the upper right, there are curtains of wispy gas that look like campfire smoke. The white smoke-like material also appears to fill the cavity of the inner shell, featuring structures shaped like large bubbles. Around and within the nebula, there are various stars seen as points of blue and white light. Outside the nebula, there are also clumps of yellow dust, with a particularly large clump at the bottom right corner that appears to have very detailed striations.
This is an artist’s impression of a young star surrounded by a protoplanetary disk in which planets are forming.
The image is dominated by a dusty disk extending from upper left to lower right and tilted toward the viewer. It resembles patchy clouds with small rocky bits scattered throughout. At 4 o’clock and 11 o’clock are two small, embedded planets. The outer edges of the disk are reddish, the middle orange, and the inner region yellow-white. At the center is a gap within which is a bright white star.
The NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s reveals a portion of the Milky Way’s dense center...
A crowded region of space, full of stars and colorful clouds, more than twice as wide as it is tall. A funnel-shaped region of space appears darker than its surroundings with fewer stars. It is wider at the top edge of the image, narrowing towards the bottom. Toward the narrow end of this dark region a small clump of red and white appears to shoot out streamers upward and left. A large, bright cyan-colored area surrounds the lower portion of the funnel-shaped dark area, forming a rough U shape. The cyan-colored area has needle-like, linear structures and becomes more diffuse in the center of the image. The right side of the image is dominated by clouds of orange and red, with a purple haze.
In this artist concept, the young star SZ Chamaeleontis (SZ Cha) is surrounded by a disk of dust and gas...
Looking in from the outer edge of a dusty, spinning disk surrounding a bright central star, which is illustrated as an indistinct bright region in the center of the disk. Rays of light emanate from the central area. A dark gap in the disk appears between the bright core and the dusty, hazy outer regions, which build up slightly as you move outward, so that the core appears sunken. The outer disk has some bands of varying thickness, in varying shades of orange.
This panchromatic view of galaxy cluster MACS0416 was created by combining infrared observations from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope with...
A field of galaxies on the black background of space. In the middle, stretching from left to right, is a collection of dozens of yellowish spiral and elliptical galaxies that form a foreground galaxy cluster. Among them are distorted linear features, which mostly appear to follow invisible concentric circles curving around the center of the image.
Artist's Concept: This artist’s concept compares two types of typical, planet-forming disks around newborn, Sun-like stars. On the left is...
This artist’s concept compares two types of typical, planet-forming disks around newborn, Sun-like stars. On the left is a compact disk with no rings or gaps. On the right is an extended disk with rings and gaps. The compact disk is considerably smaller than the extended disk. Both the right and left illustrations have a bright yellow center indicative of a newly formed star. In both, the yellow center is surrounded by a swirling, orange disk. On the left, the compact disk appears unbroken by any gaps or rings. On the right, the extended disk features two, thick, mottled, orange rings surrounded by two, large, almost black gaps. The central portion of the extended disk has an outer region of orange surrounding a bright yellow center.
This image by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) reveals new details in infrared...
The Crab Nebula. An oval nebula with complex structure against a black background. On the nebula’s exterior, particularly at the top left and bottom left, lie curtains of glowing red and orange fluffy material. Its interior shell shows large-scale loops of mottled filaments of yellow-white and green, studded with clumps and knots. Translucent thin ribbons of smoky white lie within the remnant’s interior, brightest toward its center. The white material follows different directions throughout, including sometimes sharply curving away from certain regions within the remnant. A faint, wispy ring of white material encircles the very center of the nebula. Around and within the supernova remnant are many points of blue, red, and yellow light.
This image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument highlights Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) 230307A and its associated...
Bright galaxies and other light sources in various sizes and shapes are scattered across a black swath of space: small points, hazy elliptical-like smudges with halos, and spiral-shaped blobs. The objects vary in color: white, blue-white, yellow-white, and orange-red. Toward the center right is a blue-white spiral galaxy seen face-on that is larger than the other light sources in the image. The galaxy is labeled “former home galaxy.” Toward the upper left is a small red point, which has a white circle around it and is labeled “GRB 230307A kilonova.”
This image of Jupiter from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) shows stunning details of the majestic planet...
Jupiter dominates the black background of space. The image is a composite, and shows Jupiter in enhanced color, featuring the planet’s famous Great Red Spot, which appears white with light pink around the edges. The planet is striated with swirling horizontal stripes of green, periwinkle, light pink, and cream. Horizontally across the equator is a wide cream-colored band, whose height extends about 1/7 of the planet. This is the planet’s equatorial zone. The stripes across the planet interact and mix at their edges. Along both of the northern and southern poles, the planet glows in green. Bright red auroras glow just above the planet’s surface at both poles.
ILLUSTRATION: This artist’s concept shows what the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-17 b could look like based on observations from...
Illustration showing a portion of the disk of a cloudy planet set against the black background of space. About one-eighth of the planet is visible. It fills the lower right half of the frame, with the limb (the edge, or horizon) curving from the bottom left corner to the upper right corner. The planet is partially lit by a star that is off to the upper left, out of view. The planet is brightest along the limb (on the dayside), and grows dimmer toward the lower right corner (the nightside), becoming almost completely dark about halfway in. Wispy, light-tan-colored clouds are visible in the lit portion and there is a hazy blueish glow along the horizon. Several stars are scattered in the background.
This new infrared image of NGC 346 from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) traces emission from cool...
The lower half of this image contains arcs of bluish material that form a boat-like shape. One end of these arcs points to the top right of the image, while the other end points toward the bottom left. Another plume of blue filaments expands from the center to the top left, resembling the mast of a sailboat. Within and extending beyond the boat shape are translucent curtains of pink, which appear atop the boat shape as well and cover most of the image. Stars are noticeably scarce. A couple dozen bright pink patches with six short diffraction spikes are scattered within the blue filaments. Many faint blue dots, or stars, also speckle the background, which is black or dark gray.
For as long as humans have gazed into the night sky, we have wondered about life beyond the Earth. Scientists...
4 Panel Graphic: Four square panels appear in a horizontal strip. The first features a blue-and-white sphere against a black background, reminiscent of the “Blue Marble” picture of Earth. With fuzzy edges, this sphere has darker blue patches in the northern hemisphere and two large white patches in the southern hemisphere. Below it is the label: “Europa (NIRCam).” Each of the second, third, and fourth panels has a pixelated, roughly circular image of small, white, blue, or orange squares. The orange or blue squares appear in various shades. Several squares are a mix of both orange and blue. In each of these panels, there are slight variations in the arrangement of the colored squares. In the second panel, the label below the image reads: “Crystalline C O 2 ice at 2.7 microns.” In the third panel, the label below the image reads: “Crystalline C O 2 ice at 4.27 microns.” In the fourth panel, the label below the image reads: “Complex C O 2 ice at 4.25 microns.” See the extended description for more details.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s high resolution, near-infrared look at Herbig-Haro 211 reveals exquisite detail of the outflow of a...
At the center is a thin horizontal pinkish cloud known as Herbig-Haro 211 that is uneven with rounded ends, and tilted from bottom left to top right. It takes up about two-thirds of the length of this angle, but is thinner and longer at the opposite angle. At its center is a dark spot. On either side of the dark spot, there are orangish yellow wisps that extend to light blue wisps. Within the center of those clouds, a pink fluffy streak runs through each lobe. At the ends of each lobe, pink becomes the dominant color. The lobe to the left is fatter. The right lobe is thinner, and ends in a smaller pink semi-circle. Just off the edge of this lobe is a slightly smaller pink semicircle, then a pink sponge-like blog. The background contains several bright stars, each with eight diffraction spikes extending out from the central bright point.
This artist’s concept shows what exoplanet K2-18 b could look like based on science data. K2-18 b, an exoplanet 8.6...
This artist illustration shows a blue planet on the right, with its small, glowing red star in the lower left. Between them is another planet, a tiny white crescent in the distance.
Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) captured this detailed image of SN 1987A (Supernova 1987A). At the center, material ejected from the...
A pale red ring made up of small white circles surrounds a bright blue spot in the center. Three bright spots are on the outside of the ring, all against a black background speckled with stars.
The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has observed the well-known Ring Nebula with unprecedented detail. Formed by a star throwing...
NIRCAM IMAGE: This image of the Ring Nebula appears as a distorted doughnut. The nebula’s inner cavity hosts shades of blue and green, while the detailed ring transitions through shades of orange in the inner regions and pink in the outer region. The ring’s inner region has distinct filament elements.
Webb’s infrared image of the galaxy cluster El Gordo (“the Fat One”) reveals hundreds of galaxies, some never before seen...
A black background is scattered with hundreds of small galaxies of different shapes, ranging in color from white to yellow to red. Some galaxies are distorted, appearing to be stretched out or mirror imaged. Near the center, a particularly long and thin line stretches from ten o’clock to four o’clock. At upper right, a red swoosh extends about three-quarters of the way around a pair of galaxies. A handful of foreground stars display eight diffraction spikes.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured a tightly bound pair of actively forming stars, known as Herbig-Haro 46/47, in...
Horizontal orange cloud known as Herbig-Haro 46/47, with a central yellow-white blob pierced by red diffraction spikes. A surrounding nebula is seen as a delicate, semi-transparent blue haze. The background is filled with stars and galaxies.
A wide field view showcases Jupiter in the upper right quadrant. The planet’s swirling horizontal stripes are rendered in blues,...
Webb’s Jupiter Images Showcase Auroras, Hazes
This image depicts a field of hundreds of galaxies of various shapes, colors and sizes. Most are small while a...
Webb Glimpses Field of Extragalactic PEARLS, Studded With Galactic Diamonds
The eerie landscape is captured this time by the James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI). Mid-infrared light specializes in...
James Webb image of the The Pillars of Creation
By combining images of the iconic Pillars of Creation from two cameras aboard NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the universe...
Image of the Pillars of Creation
NASA’s Webb Captures Dying Star’s Final ‘Performance’ in Fine Detail
This image is from Webb’s NIRCam instrument, which saw this nebula in the near-infrared.
The James Webb Space Telescope spotted the unambiguous signature of water, indications of haze & evidence for clouds (once thought...
NASA’s Webb Reveals Steamy Atmosphere of Distant Planet in Detail.
Behind the curtain of dust and gas in these “Cosmic Cliffs” are previously hidden baby stars, now uncovered by Webb....
An image of the Carina Nebula.
In the James Webb Space Telescope’s image of Stephan’s Quintet, we see 5 galaxies, 4 of which interact. (The left...
NASA’s Webb Sheds Light on Galaxy Evolution, Black Holes
galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the...
The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago