(click on image to enlarge)
The different colors of the background galaxies indicate how much dust is in front of them, as dust both absorbs and scatters light. Redder galaxies lie behind larger amounts of dust, yellower galaxies lie behind thinner layers of dust, and whiter galaxies are mostly unobstructed.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI; Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
(click on image to enlarge)
The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from below) is flipped relative to direction arrows on a map of the ground (as seen from above).
The scale bar is labeled in light-years.
This image shows invisible near- and mid-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into visible-light colours. The colour key shows which NIRCam and MIRI filters were used when collecting the light. The colour of each filter name is the visible light colour used to represent the infrared light that passes through that filter.
[Image description: Annotated image of galaxy Centaurus A captured by Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) and MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument), with compass arrows, a scale bar, and colour key for reference. A diagonal image of the galaxy stretches from the upper left to the lower right against a deep black background filled with tiny orange, blue, and white points of light. A band of golden-orange dust cuts across the middle of the galaxy, forming a distinctive parallelogram shape. Just above the centre, peach-coloured ribbons trace an S-shaped structure. The galaxy’s outer edges are reddish-orange. Below the image is a colour key showing which of Webb’s filters were used to create the image and the visible-light colour assigned. NIRCam filters, from left to right: F090W is blue, F187N is blue, F200W is cyan, F277W is yellow, F335M is orange, F444W is red. MIRI filters, from left to right: F560 is yellow, F770W is orange, F1000W is red.]
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI. Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI), J. Depasquale (STScI), M. Garcia Marin (ESA Office at STScI)
(click on image to enlarge)
MACS J0553.4-3342 is situated at a redshift of 0.412. Redshift is a measure of how much the cluster’s light has been stretched by the expansion of the Universe over the course of its long journey to Webb’s mirrors; this unassuming number tells us that we are seeing MACS J0553.4-3342 as it was 4.4 billion years in the past. But for a galaxy cluster, this is relatively young. In fact, observations with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and other telescopes show a cluster still in the process of being built.
MACS J0553.4-3342 is composed of two sub-clusters — roughly equal in mass — that are actively merging. The two subclusters have already slammed through each other and travelled over one million light-years apart, but they will eventually come back together again and again until they finally merge. The construction process is messy, and MACS J0553.4-3342 is filled with extremely hot gas that radiates powerful X-rays. Each subcluster is anchored on an immensely bright and massive elliptical galaxy, which are easily identifiable as the two brightest points in the centre of this scene with the largest glowing halos around them. The many smaller white elliptical galaxies are bound to one of the two subclusters by gravity, and will be incorporated into the final galaxy cluster. This image also features many foreground galaxies — spirals and dusty discs that are unrelated to MACS J0553.4-3342 — and prominent bright stars in our own Milky Way galaxy.
Even mid-way through its construction, the titanic clumps of matter swirling around in this galaxy cluster have built a device that is already very useful for us here on Earth: a gravitational lens. The extreme and concentrated mass in MACS J0553.4-3342 curves light with its gravity, similar to how a glass lens bends and focuses light. In this image you can see prominent orange, stretched-out arcs alongside each of the subclusters. These arcs are images of distant background galaxies, whose light has been warped by the galaxy cluster’s gravitational pull. The arc on the left side, three bright spots joined together, is actually three images of a single background galaxy! A forest of smaller arcs and lines are scattered across the image too; such a fantastic view appears in few other places in the Universe.
Look in the right spot, however, and this galaxy cluster turns from a distorting funhouse mirror into a precision scientific device. The gravitational lensing focuses light, magnifying objects and enhancing their brightness so if they lie in exactly the right place, background galaxies and even individual stars that would have been far too faint and distant to spot will be made visible. By carefully mapping out the mass of the cluster, researchers can reconstruct where and how strongly it distorts light from our point of view, then search for serendipitously-magnified distant objects to study. The arcs we can see in MACS J0553.4-3342 already show a few galaxies from less than a billion years after the Big Bang.
This image, taken with Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), stems from a survey programme named VENUS (#6882). Astronomers aimed to create a collection of deep, high-quality images of massive galaxy clusters like MACS J0553.4-3342 across a wide range of infrared wavelengths, greatly expanding the area covered by Webb’s sensitive instruments. Researchers can then scour the clusters for distant and faint objects that have been brightened through gravitational lensing, from young galaxies and low-mass black holes to supernova explosions and individual stars. Gravitational lensing has been key to many of Webb’s most dramatic discoveries in recent years, and having many more examples of it allows us to systematically study the distant past and the evolutionary stages of the galaxies, stars and black holes we see today.
[Image Description: A galaxy cluster in deep space. It is filled with elliptical galaxies: small, bright white glowing ovals. The two largest elliptical galaxies, left and right of center, are bright cores that radiate light. Unrelated, distant galaxies are scattered around as red smudges and dots.Many of these are stretched out into red arcs and lines by the galaxy cluster’s strong gravity, creating multiple images in places. Numerous spiral galaxies and bright stars appear in the foreground.]
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, S. Fujimoto
(click on image to enlarge)
The James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes joined forces to study Terzan 5. Astronomers already knew that this star cluster was unusual in that it contained two stellar populations of very different ages. New research found strong evidence for two more stellar populations, one that formed 3.8 billion years ago and another only 2.5 billion years ago. The research team also was able to determine the ages of the previously known stellar populations with unprecedented precision, finding that they formed 12.5 billion and 4.7 billion years ago.
This finding proved that Terzan 5 is not a globular star cluster, as originally classified. Instead, Terzan 5 belongs to a new category, known as a bulge fossil fragment — a self-contained, self-enriching stellar system with multiple star populations of different ages and with different iron abundances.
Terzan 5 is 22,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. It contains about 2 million times the Sun's mass packed into a stellar system only a few tens of light-years across, making it one of the most massive and densely populated globular-cluster-like systems in the Milky Way.
This image was created with Hubble data from proposal: 12933 (F. R. Ferraro) and Webb data from proposal: 5502 (F. R. Ferraro).
[Image description: A dramatically crowded starfield that looks like a just-shaken snow globe. The black background of space, which is clearer at the edges, is covered by thousands of tiny white, orange, and blue points of light, which are stars. The stars are most concentrated in the centre, forming a roughly circular orb, and sparser at the edges of the image. Several larger orange stars, particularly those largest near the edges of the frame, have prominent diffraction spikes.]
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, G. Zullo (University of Bologna), F. R. Ferraro (University of Bologna). Image Processing: A. Pagan (STScI)
(click on image to enlarge)
The target of these observations, however, requires us to look behind the Orion Nebula. Behind the stars, gas and dust of M42 is a long, massive filament of cold gas and dust called (somewhat confusingly) the Orion Molecular Clouds, which is divided into four parts, OMC-1 through OMC-4. OMC-1 sits immediately behind M42, to the north are OMC-2 and OMC-3, and OMC-4 lies to the south.
This image shows just a small, northern portion of OMC-2, located 1280 light-years from Earth and a little north of the Orion Nebula. Every stage of star formation — from the youngest stellar embryos, to protoplanetary discs, to newly-minted pre-main sequence stars — is contained within just this scene, which stretches 150 light-years across. The intense star-forming activity has produced an impressive display of billowing outflows and sparkling stars atop swirling layers of gas and dark, obscuring clouds.
Molecular clouds such as OMC-2 are vast clumps of gas much more dense than the rest of interstellar space. This density allows complex molecules to form, protected from the radiation given off by other stars, and it means that gravity can cause the cloud to collapse and form stars. The earliest stage of this process is a protostar - a growing star that is being fed gas from the surrounding cloud through a spinning disc of gas. As gas falls onto the protostar, it heats up, powering the glow of the protostar. The immense amount of energy acquired during this process is unleashed in fierce jets of gas from the poles of the star, frequently seen as twin glowing outflows that mark the location of a protostar.
The abundance of protostars forming here in OMC-2 has created many spectacular outflows, large and small. Jets emitted from the young stars form high-speed shockwaves that sweep through the dense material around them; where the shockwaves are impacting the gas, it heats up and glows brightly, creating sharp ridges. Zoom in to observe the fine details in these shockwaves, as well as spot the smaller outflows from younger protostars. See if you can spot the location of hidden protostars, still so deeply obscured by their dusty cradles that they can’t be seen directly, by following outflows! Compare these very young protostars to the most evolved examples: the large, bright stars which have cleared away the clouds that surrounded them and now illuminate OMC-2.
Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) was used to capture this view of OMC-2. The thick gas and dust in and around the Orion Nebula blocks any light coming from OMC-2 at visible wavelengths, and the clouds in OMC-2 itself obscure the protostars that astronomers really want to find. Only in the infrared do we see these protostars begin to shine out from their cocoons of dust. In many places, the cold dust is so dense that it absorbs all or almost all light, creating dark globules. Orange, brown and some of the red colours mark warmer dust that absorbs some light and emits some of its own. The yellow to green gradient is largely emission from polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), while light from stars and protostars scattered by dust grains is seen here primarily as blue and cyan hazes. Gas heated by the outflows creates the detailed, glowing red ridges.
The data was collected in observing programme #5804, which aims to study the star formation in OMC-2 and its immediate neighbour, OMC-3. Since these molecular clouds are so near to Earth, they are excellent laboratories to learn about the earliest stages of stellar evolution. Astronomers will use the data from Webb to investigate how the many outflows affect star formation in the two regions, how the ultraviolet emission from the young stars impacts chemistry in the circumstellar discs which one day will form planets, and how gas and dust accretes onto the tens of protostars in the region.
[Image Description: An area inside a star-forming molecular cloud. The background is covered with layers of gas and dust in blue, green and yellowish colours. Thicker clumps of cold dust, dark brown to black, block out light completely. Stars lie among and atop the clouds, from small orange ones to large white or blue ones. Waves and streams of glowing whitish gas are created by jets from protostars colliding with the surrounding material.]
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, T. Megeath, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb)
Acknowledgement: M. H. Özsaraç
(click on image to enlarge)
Now, the state of the art has been further developed with both Hubble and Webb working together to provide a broad-spectrum view of thousands of young star clusters. An international team of astronomers has pored over images of four nearby galaxies from the FEAST observing programme (#1783), trying to solve this mystery. Their results show that it is the most massive star clusters that clear away their gaseous shroud the fastest, and begin lighting their galaxy the earliest.
The team identified nearly 9000 star clusters in the four galaxies in different evolutionary stages: young clusters just starting to emerge from their natal clouds of gas, clusters that had partially dispersed the gas (both from Webb images), and fully unobstructed clusters visible in optical light (found in Hubble images). With Webb’s ability to peer inside the gas clouds, they were able to then estimate the mass and age of each cluster from its light spectrum.
This image shows a section of one of the spiral arms of Messier 51 (M51), one of the four galaxies studied in this work, as seen by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam). The thick clumps of star-forming gas are shown here in red and orange, representing infrared light emitted by ionised gas, dust grains, and complex molecules such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Within these gas complexes, each tens or hundreds of light years across, Webb reveals the dense, extremely bright clusters of massive stars that have just recently formed. The countless stars strewn across the arm of the galaxy, many of which would be invisible to our eyes behind layers of dust, are also laid bare in infrared light.
[Image description: A large, long portion of one of the spiral arms in galaxy M51. Red-orange, clumpy filaments of gas and dust that stretch in a chain from left to right comprise the arm. Shining cyan bubbles light up parts of the gas clouds from within, and gaps expose bright star clusters in these bubbles as glowing white dots. The whole image is dotted with small stars. A faint blue glow around the arm colours the otherwise dark background.]
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Pedrini, A. Adamo (Stockholm University) and the FEAST JWST team
(click on image to enlarge)
One of Webb’s principle science goals is
to observe distant galaxies in the early universe to understand the
details of their formation, evolution, and composition. Webb’s keen
infrared vision helps the telescope peer back in time, as the light from
these distant galaxies is redshifted towards infrared wavelengths.
Comparing these systems with galaxies in the local Universe will help
astronomers understand how galaxies grew to form the structure we see
today. Webb will also probe the chemical composition of thousands of
galaxies to shed light on how heavy elements were formed and built up as
galaxies evolved.
To take full advantage of Webb’s potential
for galaxy archeology, astronomers and engineers must first calibrate
the telescope’s instruments and systems. Each of Webb’s instruments
contains a labyrinthine array of mirrors and other optical elements that
redirect and focus starlight gathered by Webb’s main mirror. This
particular observation was part of the commissioning campaign for Webb’s
Near-InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS). As well as
performing science in its own right, NIRISS supports parallel
observations with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam). NIRCam captured
this galaxy-studded image while NIRISS was observing the white dwarf
WD1657+343, a well-studied star. This allows astronomers to interpret
and compare data from the two different instruments, and to characterise
the performance of NIRISS.
[Image description: Many
stars and galaxies lie on a dark background, in a variety of colours but
mostly shades of orange. Some galaxies are large enough to make out
spiral arms. Along the bottom of the frame is a large, detailed spiral
galaxy seen at an oblique angle, with another galaxy about one-quarter
the size just beneath it. Both have a brightly glowing core, and areas
of star formation which light up their spiral arms.]
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Martel
(click on image to enlarge)
From NASA/ ESA, April 3, 2026: This shining disc in the middle of a dark, empty background is a protoplanetary disc named Oph 163131, and it’s one of two featured for this month's ESA/Webb Picture of the Month. Also catalogued as 2MASS J16313124-2426281, it is located about 480 light-years away in our galaxy, in the constellation Ophiuchus. Its close location, almost edge-on inclination of 85 degrees (where 90 would be perfectly edge-on) and its considerable size of 66 billion kilometres across — several times wider than our Solar System — make it an excellent target for studying these kinds of planet-forming discs.
At the centre of Oph 163131 is a newly formed star that’s still wrapped in a thick disc of gas and dust. Eventually the new star will disperse all the dust with its ferocious radiation, but before that happens there’s a chance for the dust to clump together and grow into pebbles, planetesimals and eventually planets — hence, a protoplanetary disc. Whether planets appear, and what kind of planets they are, depends on how larger and smaller dust grains migrate in the disc. An edge-on view like this shows us if dust grains are settling into a layer of large dust grains at the core of the disc. Such a layer is critical for dust grains to further grow and begin forming planets, and the thicker it is, the better.
This image of Oph 163131 combines near- and mid-infrared data from Webb’s NIRCam and MIRI instruments with visible light captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and radio waves from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). Where Hubble and Webb each image tiny dust grains only micrometres across, ALMA sees larger dust grains that are about a milimetre in size, which are concentrated in the central plane of the disc. Combined with the very slightly off-edge perspective, this creates a particularly clear picture of the structure of Oph 163131.
Small dust grains floating above and below the disc scatter light from the star and reflect it at us, creating the purple arcs above and below the centre; these are most clearly seen by Hubble and Webb’s NIRCam. The disc of dust itself, here shown in yellow, is made of the larger dust grains visible to ALMA. It distinctly shows two rings separated by a gap — potentially a region where a planet is already forming and clearing up dust in the disc. The red, green and blue glow around the disc that extends far into the background appears most brightly in the mid-infrared images from MIRI, combined with the distinctive diffraction spikes from Webb at the longer wavelength observations.
Taken together, the observations describe a disc where the large dust grains that create an environment where planets can form have been concentrated into the centre, and might even have created a clump of gas that is well on its way to becoming a new planet. We get a unique view of this very interesting protoplanetary disc out of the bargain, too!
[Image Description: A protoplanetary disc around a newly-formed star. The disc itself appears to be made of two flat, purple lobes that meet in the centre. Yellow rings are visible in the midplane. The whole disc glows brightly, shining bands of green, blue and red light into space around it. Several stars are visible nearby as white dots. Distant galaxies also appear as large, dark orange spirals and other shapes, fading into the black background.]
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, ESA/Hubble, ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), M. Villenave
(click on image to enlarge)
From NASA/ ESA, March 20, 2026: Easily identified by the spectacular band of dark dust that partially obscures its bright core, Messier 64, or the Black Eye Galaxy, is characterized by its bizarre internal motion. The gas in the outer regions of this spiral galaxy is rotating in the opposite direction from the gas and stars in its inner regions. This strange behavior may be the result of a merger between M64 and a satellite galaxy over a billion years ago.
New stars are forming in the region where the oppositely rotating gases collide, are compressed, and then contract. Particularly noticeable in this stunning Hubble image of the galaxy’s core are recently formed hot, blue stars and pink clouds of glowing hydrogen gas that fluoresce when exposed to ultraviolet light from the newly-formed stars.
This image is a composite view from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. It shows Messier 64 captured at near- and mid-infrared wavelengths by Webb, while Hubble’s image shows the galaxy in ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light. These observations were taken to learn more about star formation in nearby galaxies.
Image description: Hubble and Webb image of M64. A massive spiral galaxy glows with a yellow core, surrounded by arms full of orange-brown dust and pink and blue patches of star formation. Framed by a haze of dark dust, the galaxy shines against black space dotted with a few stars.
Credit: NASA, CSA, ESA, F. Belfiore (European Southern Observatory – Germany), J. Lee (Space Telescope Science Institute), A. Leroy (The Ohio State University), and D. Thilker (The Johns Hopkins University); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
(click on image to enlarge)
From NASA/ ESA, February 25, 2026: A distinct dark lane between two cosmic clouds adds to the brainy appearance of nebula PMR 1. The NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) instrument on the James Webb Space Telescope shows multiple phases of a dying star’s outbursts in one image: the skull-like, whitish outer bubble is from an initial ejection, mostly of hydrogen, followed by other heavier material, shown in orange in the nebula’s interior. As with many NIRCam images, many stars and even distant galaxies can be seen behind the nebula.
Beyond its unusual appearance there is still much to be uncovered about PMR 1. It’s unclear if the star creating the nebula is massive enough to undergo a supernova, or if it will evolve into a dense white dwarf once it has shed all its outer layers.
[Image description: A nebula appears like a transparent bubble with a white edge, inside which are two hemispheres of orange clouds being blown out from the centre, split by a dark lane, giving the overall appearance of a see-through skull with a brain inside, as seen from above. A few stars appear with six points, and small background galaxies can be seen around and through the outer bubble.]
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)
(click on image to enlarge)
[Image description: A closeup of a small section of the Helix Nebula, an expanding shell of gas and dust. Thousands of orange and gold comet-like pillars stream upward from the bottom, like thin liquid blown up a sheet of glass. These pillars are around the circumference of the arced shell, which forms a partial orange semi-circle at the bottom. The pillars are more numerous and denser at the bottom, and darker red. They fade to orange and then yellow in the arc. In the top two-thirds, they are thinner and more golden, and it’s easier to see the black background of space. Several bright blue stars, some with diffraction spikes, are scattered throughout. A few larger stars are on the right side.]
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Pagan (STScI)
(click on image to enlarge)
Despite being smaller than the Milky Way, M82 is five times as luminous as our home galaxy and forms stars ten times faster. M82 is classified as a starburst galaxy because it is forming new stars at a rate much faster than expected for a galaxy of its mass, especially at its centre. In visible-light images of M82, the central hotbed of activity is obscured by a network of thick and dusty clouds. Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) has drawn back these clouds, revealing the full brilliance of the galactic centre.
What caused M82’s burst of star formation? The answer likely lies with its neighbour, the larger spiral galaxy M81. Researchers suspect that the two galaxies have interacted gravitationally, sending gas pouring into M82’s centre millions of years ago. The influx of gas provided the raw material for new stars to form — and form they did! M82 is home to more than 100 super star clusters, some of which are still in the process of forming and are blanketed with dense, dusty gas. Super star clusters are more massive and luminous than typical star clusters; these each contain hundreds of thousands of stars.
A previous Webb NIRCam image of M82 was released in 2024. The earlier image focused on the very core of the galaxy, where individual clusters of young stars stand out against the clumps and tendrils of gas. This new image takes a broader view of M82’s brilliant centre, capturing the light of billions of stars as well as the glow of organic molecules called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs.
Researchers used the new Webb data to identify plumes traced by the emission from PAH molecules. Each plume is only about 160 light-years wide, and the Webb images show that these plumes are made up of multiple individual clouds that are 16–49 light-years across — an incredible level of detail enabled by Webb’s sensitive instruments. These clouds appear to have been caught up in the galaxy’s powerful outflowing winds and whisked away from the galactic disc.
Ultimately, this phenomenon points back to the galaxy’s remarkable abundance of massive star clusters: as these massive clusters form, their newborn stars sear the surrounding gas with high-energy radiation and particles, launching the outflowing wind that is traced by this NIRCam image.
[Image Description: An image of the central part of galaxy M82. The galaxy’s disc extends from the top to the bottom of the image, emitting a blue-white glow. Gas erupts from the brightly shining centre, forming an hourglass-shaped plume of red and orange dust clouds to the left and right. Ridges and cavities in the gas are visible in great detail. Many distant galaxies can be seen in the background, as well as tiny pinprick stars in M82.]
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, A. Bolatto
(click on image to enlarge)
A previous Hubble image of this galaxy was released in 2020, and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope turned its gaze toward NGC 2835 in recent years as well. Do you see anything different between today’s image of NGC 2835 and the previously released versions? Overall, NGC 2835 looks quite similar in all of these images, with spiral arms dotted with young blue stars sweeping around an oval-shaped centre, where older stars reside.
This image differs from previously released images because it incorporates new data from Hubble that captures a specific wavelength of red light called H-alpha. The regions that are bright in H-alpha emission can be seen along NGC 2835’s spiral arms, where dozens of bright pink nebulae appear like flowers in bloom. Astronomers are interested in H-alpha light because it signals the presence of several different types of nebulae that arise during different stages of a star’s life. Newborn massive stars create nebulae called H II regions that are particularly brilliant sources of H-alpha light, while dying stars can leave behind supernova remnants or planetary nebulae that can also be identified by their H-alpha emission.
By using Hubble’s sensitive instruments to survey 19 nearby galaxies, researchers aim to identify more than 50 000 nebulae. These observations will help to explain how stars affect their birth neighbourhoods through intense starlight and winds.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy seen face-on. Its centre is a bright glowing yellow. The galaxy’s spiral arms contain sparkling blue stars, pink spots of star formation, and dark threads of dust that follow the arms.]
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, R. Chandar, J. Lee and the PHANGS-HST team
____________________
Ed. -- here's the previous Hubble image from 2020 referenced above, for comparison:
And here's the James Webb Space Telescope version from January 2024:
(click on image to enlarge)
Einstein rings occur when light from a very distant object is bent (or ‘lensed’) about a massive intermediate (or ‘lensing’) object. This is possible because spacetime, the fabric of the Universe itself, is bent by mass, and therefore light travelling through space and time is bent as well. This effect is much too subtle to be observed on a local level, but it sometimes becomes clearly observable when dealing with curvatures of light on enormous, astronomical scales, such as when the light from one galaxy is bent around another galaxy or galaxy cluster.
When the lensed object and the lensing object line up just so, the result is the distinctive Einstein ring shape, which appears as a full circle (as seen here) or a partial circle of light around the lensing object, depending on the precision of the alignment. Objects like these are the ideal laboratory in which to research galaxies too faint and distant to otherwise see.
The lensing galaxy at the center of this Einstein ring is an
elliptical galaxy, as can be seen from the galaxy’s bright core and
smooth, featureless body. This galaxy belongs to a galaxy cluster named
SMACSJ0028.2-7537. The lensed galaxy wrapped around the elliptical
galaxy is a spiral galaxy. Even though its image has been warped as its
light travelled around the galaxy in its path, individual star clusters
and gas structures are clearly visible.
The Webb data used in this image were taken as part of the Strong Lensing and Cluster Evolution (SLICE) survey (programme 5594),
which is led by Guillaume Mahler at University of Liège in Belgium, and
consists of a team of international astronomers. This survey aims to
trace 8 billion years of galaxy cluster evolution by targeting 182
galaxy clusters with Webb’s Near-InfraRed Camera instrument. This image also incorporates data from two of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s instruments, the Wide Field Camera 3 and the Advanced Camera for Surveys.
[Image Description: In the centre is an elliptical galaxy, seen as an oval-shaped glow around a small bright core. Around this is wrapped a broad band of light, appearing like a spiral galaxy stretched and warped into a ring, with bright blue lines drawn through it where the spiral arms have been stretched into circles. A few distant objects are visible around the ring on a black background.]
Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, G. Mahler
Acknowledgement: M. A. McDonald
Using data from the James Webb Space Telescope, University of Cambridge professor Nikku Madhusudhan and his team believe they have found possible biological life on an exoplanet (K2-18b) in the "Goldilocks" habitable range orbiting its dwarf star over 120 light years away.
Here's the announcement:
(click on images to enlarge)
From NASA/ ESA, March 10, 2025: This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week features a sparkling spiral galaxy paired with a prominent star, both in the constellation Virgo. While the galaxy and the star appear to be close to one another, even overlapping, they’re actually a great distance apart. The star, which is marked with four long diffraction spikes, is in our own galaxy. It’s just 7109 light-years away from Earth. The galaxy, which is named NGC 4900, lies about 45 million light-years from Earth.
This image combines data from two of Hubble’s instruments: the Advanced Camera for Surveys, which was installed in 2002 and is still in operation today, and the older Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2, which was in use from 1993 to 2009. The data used here were taken more than 20 years apart for two different observing programmes — a real testament to Hubble’s long scientific lifetime!
Both programmes aimed to understand the demise of massive stars. In one, researchers studied the sites of past supernovae, aiming to estimate the masses of the stars that exploded and investigate how supernovae interact with their surroundings. NGC 4900 was selected for study because it hosted a supernova named SN 1999br.
In the other programme, researchers laid the groundwork for studying future supernovae by collecting images of more than 150 nearby galaxies. After a supernova is detected in one of these galaxies, researchers can examine these images, searching for a star at the location of the supernova. Identifying a supernova progenitor star in pre-explosion images gives valuable information about how, when and why supernovae occur.
[Image Description: A spiral galaxy seen face-on. Broken spiral arms made of blue patches of stars and thin strands of dark dust swirl around the galaxy’s centre, forming a broad, circular disc. An extended circular halo surrounds the disc. The centre is a brightly-glowing, stubby bar-shaped area in a pale yellow colour. A bright star in our own galaxy, with long cross-shaped diffraction spikes, is visible atop the distant galaxy.]
Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, S. J. Smartt, C. Kilpatrick
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From NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, March 10, 2025: The Flame Nebula lies in the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex and is home to cosmic objects that are not quite planets, but are also so small their cores can’t sustain fusing hydrogen like full-fledged stars do - brown dwarfs.
Decades of Hubble data was crucial in identifying candidates for further study, essentially handing the baton to Webb to take an in-depth look at this region using its infrared sensitivity.
Webb took a look at the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, looking for the faintest and the smallest of brown dwarfs.
Brown dwarfs are very dim and much cooler than stars, making them hard to detect. When they are young, they are a bit warmer and brighter and easier to observe, making the Flame Nebula star-forming region (within this molecular cloud complex) a good place to look for them.
Webb’s ability to see warm objects through dense dust is allowing Webb not only to find brown dwarf candidates, but also to explore their lowest mass limits. Though Webb has the infrared sensitivity to potentially see brown dwarfs as low-mass as half that of Jupiter, the lowest-mass objects scientists found are about 2-3 times the mass of Jupiter. The current hypothesis that this might be at or near the lower limit for the mass of brown dwarfs. This also takes into account the dynamics at play within the molecular clouds where these objects are born.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Michael Meyer (University of Michigan), Matthew De Furio (UT Austin), Massimo Robberto (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI)
Image description: There is an orange and yellow fang-like cloud of matter that cuts the image in two. The left side of the fang shows more clouds of a dark brown shade, while the right shows filaments of light brown. There are a number of bright blue and red points of light spread throughout.
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The image from Webb’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) combines infrared light at wavelengths of 0.9 microns (represented in blue), 1.5 microns (green), and 2.77 microns (red). The stars in Leo P appear blue in comparison to the background galaxies for several reasons. Young, massive stars that are common in star-forming galaxies are predominantly blue. Leo P also is extremely lacking in elements heavier than hydrogen and helium, and the resulting “metal-poor” stars tend to be bluer than Sun-like stars. A bubble-like structure at bottom center is a region of ionized hydrogen surrounding a hot, massive O-type star.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, K. McQuinn (STScI), J. DePasquale (STScI)
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From NASA, December 18, 2024: Since antiquity, wreaths have symbolized the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. It is fitting then that one of the best places for astronomers to learn more about the stellar lifecycle resembles a giant holiday wreath itself.
The star cluster NGC 602 lies on the outskirts of the Small Magellanic Cloud, which is one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way, about 200,000 light-years from Earth. The stars in NGC 602 have fewer heavier elements compared to the Sun and most of the rest of the galaxy. Instead, the conditions within NGC 602 mimic those for stars found billions of years ago when the universe was much younger.
This new image combines data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory with a previously released image from the agency’s James Webb Space Telescope. The dark ring-like outline of the wreath seen in Webb data (represented as orange, yellow, green, and blue) is made up of dense clouds of filled dust.
Meanwhile, X-rays from Chandra (red) show young, massive stars that are illuminating the wreath, sending high-energy light into interstellar space. These X-rays are powered by winds flowing from the young, massive stars that are sprinkled throughout the cluster. The extended cloud in the Chandra data likely comes from the overlapping X-ray glow of thousands of young, low-mass stars in the cluster.
Image description: A star cluster is shown inside a large nebula of many-colored gas and dust. The material forms dark ridges and peaks of gas and dust surrounding the cluster, lit on the inner side, while layers of diffuse, translucent clouds blanket over them. Around and within the gas, a huge number of distant galaxies can be seen, some quite large, as well as a few stars nearer to us which are very large and bright.
Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC; Infrared: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, P. Zeilder, E.Sabbi, A. Nota, M. Zamani; Image Processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and K. Arcand
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From NASA/ ESA, October 31, 2024: This mid-infrared image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope excels at showing where the cold dust, set off in white, glows throughout these two galaxies, IC 2163 and NGC 2207. The telescope also helps pinpoint where stars and star clusters are buried within the dust. These regions are bright pink. Some of the pink dots may be extremely distant active supermassive black holes known as quasars.
Image description: 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.Image credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
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From NASA/ ESA, July 12, 2024: This new Webb image shows two galaxies: a Penguin (NGC 2936) guarding an Egg (NGC 2937). Webb’s observations reveal the two are in a cosmic hug, joined together by a blue haze of stars and gas.
We’re shaped by those closest to us, and this pair is no different. The galaxies have been merging for tens of millions of years, and will eventually become one. In fact, only about 100,000 light-years separate the Penguin and the Egg. (To compare, our Milky Way and its neighboring Andromeda Galaxy are about 2.5 million light-years apart!)
Two years ago, we revealed Webb’s first images to the world. Since then, it has discovered the most distant known galaxy, opened a new window into the atmospheres of other worlds, and provided unparalleled insight into the birth of stars and planets. We can’t wait to see how Webb will guide the next generation of explorers.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STSci
