The Official *NASA* Webb X account. The world's most powerful space telescope. Launched: Dec. 25, 2021. First images revealed: July 12, 2022.
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ALT A horizontally oriented poster with an image of Centaurus A against a black background. The galaxy is brightest at its center, where a brilliant white and pink glow radiates outward. Wispy, 'S'-shaped ribbons of pink arc above and below the center of the image. A parallelogram-shaped band of gray and white dust cuts across the middle of the galaxy. The galaxy’s outer edges fade into soft textures that stretch toward the left and right sides of the image. Along the bottom is a series of thin vertical bars ranging from purple at left to blue, green, yellow, orange, and red at right. Bars are separated slightly, with black in between. Bar colors are brightest at the bottom, fading up to black. Brightness varies from bar to bar, giving the array an undulating feel. At upper right is text that reads, "National Aeronautics and Space Administration" and NASA’s blue, white, and red meatball insignia. Title text appears at lower left that says, "James Webb Space Telescope: Centaurus A."
ALT A star-forming region. The left two thirds of the image is blanketed in thick clouds of green and yellow gas and dust that form swirling patterns. Some of the gas is spread into thin, thready wisps. The right third of the image is the black background speckled with stars and multi-colored dots that represent distant galaxies. Bright stars are scattered throughout the clouds, with the densest cluster situated in the center of the scene. Each is crowned with six long spikes and two shorter spikes created by the optics of the telescope’s mirrors.
ALT Bright stars with 8 pointed diffraction spikes are at top center. There are long columns of reddish gas going from left to center, and diagonally across the top right corner. At top left is a tilted hour-glass shaped orange burst of gas. The background is deep blue and other galaxies are sprinkled acros the background.
ALT An irregular galaxy, appearing like a broad band of tiny stars. It is denser on one side, with a faint cloud of gas among the stars. Clumps of brighter points are newly formed stars, with the largest lights being star clusters, and with many surrounded in glowing blue gas clouds. Plumes of red dust surround the galaxy. A foreground star appears
ALT This is a multiwavelength image of galaxy NGC 1672. At its center are two thick, spiraling, dark purple arms that bridge a brilliant white and neon pink core. Those bridging arms create a bar, which channels gas to the core, making NGC 1672 a barred spiral galaxy, like our own Milky Way. Longer, wispier arms also spiral out from the core, dotted with gleaming white and pink stars.
ALT A bright, densely populated star cluster lies near the centre of the image. One yellow star is labeled IRS 3. A spot in the middle is labeled Sgr A*.
ALT A bright, densely populated star cluster lies near the centre of the image, surrounded by intricate clouds of glowing gas and dust in shades of red, pink, orange, and blue. Dark lanes of dust weave through the nebula, contrasting with the luminous central region. Countless stars are scattered across the field, with a few brighter foreground stars showing Webb's characteristic diffraction spikes. An irregular black region occupies the lower-right corner of the image, indicating an area where no observational data was available.
ALT Three images of the Tarantula Nebula, each representing a different wavelength of light, presented in a different color. When layered atop one another, like sheets of colored cellophane, they combine to produce a vibrant and informative singular image. The base layer features a blanket of wispy blue clouds against a black backdrop. These clouds represent hot gas observed by Chandra. The second layer cuts diagonally across the cloudy blue square, tilted from our upper left down toward our lower right. This red layer represents infrared data collected by Webb. The third layer is a diamond-shaped image, with its points touching the edges of the big blue base layer. This green layer represents data captured by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. In the center of the combined image, the three translucent layers overlap, resulting in an image of intermingled blue, red, and green clouds that blend to include lively shades of fiery orange, golden yellow, and deep purple.
ALT A region of space filled with bright stars and clouds of gas. In the center, the densest clouds form the shape of a chest with its lid open. The chest appears to glow from within. At its base it breaks apart into long pillars of thick gas. Many of the gas clouds in the background are dark orange globules, while others form large, pale hazes. A few brightly shining stars lie in the foreground, the biggest and brightest in front of the chest’s lid.