Inside the cosmos: James Webb Space Telescope continues to dazzle
The James Webb Telescope captures images featuring never-before-seen details showcasing the beauty of the universe. Its latest picture, featuring a new view of the famous "Pillars of Creation," doesn't disappoint.
The Pillars of Creation
The shot that the Hubble Telescope took of the famous "Pillars of Creation" (left) in 2014 isn't bad. But the image captured by the James Webb Space Telescope that NASA released on October 19, 2022, is something else. The pillars of interstellar gas and dust, and the stars surrounding them, appear in breathtaking, sparkling clarity.
Ice giant Neptune
The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a spectacular image of Neptune and its rings. The snapshot is "clearer than it has been in more than 30 years," NASA enthuses. Along with the rings of the ice giant, the dust bands around Neptune can be seen just as clearly. Neptune is the only planet in the solar system that is not visible to the naked eye from Earth.
Webb's first images of Mars
The James Webb Space Telescope previously took its first images of Mars. They show part of its eastern, sunlit hemisphere. The close-up image on the left shows surface features such as Huygens Crater, the dark volcanic Syrtis Major and the Hellas Basin. The "heat map" on the right shows how Mars emits light when it loses heat.
Spinning wormholes
Webb recently peered into a wormhole in the mysterious-looking "Phantom Galaxy." Scientists believe the dust lanes spiral towards an intermediate-mass black hole at the heart of the galaxy.
A galactic collision
The Cartwheel Galaxy, located about 500 million light-years from Earth, owes its appearance to a collision between a large spiral galaxy and a smaller galaxy not visible in this image. This snapshot of Cartwheel provides insight into what happened to this galaxy in the past and how it will evolve in the future.
The invisible made visible
What might look like a glittering mountainous landscape is actually the edge of a young star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. The Webb Telescope image reveals for the first time areas where stars are born that were previously invisible.
A lens to distant galaxies
SMACS 0723 is a galaxy cluster that has the ability to magnify and distort the light of objects behind it. This gives scientists a deep-field view into extremely distant and faint galaxy populations.
Where stars are born
The Southern Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula — an expanding cloud of gas surrounding a dying star. It is nearly half a light-year in diameter, and the dimmer star at its center has been sending out rings of gas and dust for thousands of years in all directions. Nebulae are where stars are born.
The home of millions of stars
Stephan’s Quintet is a group of five galaxies. The Webb Telescope image shows never-before-seen details like sparkling clusters of millions of young stars and starburst regions of fresh star birth.