This will be an ongoing topic featuring the latest images taken by the James Webb Telescope.

All photos are credited to NASA.

Webb captured newborn stars forming in clouds of dust and gas (colored golden and orange in this image) in a star-forming region called Pismis 24. Though these clouds can hide stars by trapping visible light within, in the infrared, the stars shine through the nebula and together appear to be glowing. In the center is Pismis 24-1, an object formerly thought to be a single massive star, now known to be at least two stars. At 74 and 66 solar masses, they are some of the most massive and luminous stars ever seen and are blasting out scorching radiation and stellar winds that are carving a cavity into the wall of the star-forming nebula clouds below and at above right.

The fierce forces shaping and compressing the spires in the glowing gas at the bottom of the scene are causing new stars to form. The tallest spire spans about 5.4 light-years from the bottom of the image going up to its top. More than 200 solar systems could fit into its tip.

Pismis 24 is one of the closest sites of massive star birth, giving scientists rare insight into the properties of hot young stars and how they evolve.

Webb took a look at Sagittarius B2 molecular cloud, the most massive, and active star-forming region in our galaxy, located only a few hundred light years from our central supermassive black hole. Astronomers want to figure out why it is so much more active than the rest of the galactic center. While Sgr B2 has only 10% of the galactic center’s gas, it produces 50% of its stars.

For this new ESA/Webb Picture of the Month, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has spied a pair of dwarf galaxies engaged in a gravitational dance. These two galaxies are named NGC 4490 and NGC 4485, and they’re located about 24 million light-years away in the constellation Canes Venatici (The Hunting Dogs). Aside from the Milky Way’s own dwarf companions (the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds), this is the closest known interacting dwarf-dwarf system where astronomers have directly observed both a gas bridge and resolved stellar populations. Together NGC 4490 and NGC 4485 form the system Arp 269, which is featured in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. At such a close distance (and with Webb’s impressive ability to peer through dusty cosmic clouds) these galaxies allow astronomers to witness up close the kinds of galaxy interactions that were common billions of years ago.

This new NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope Picture of the Month features a cosmic creepy-crawly called NGC 6537 — the Red Spider Nebula. Using its Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam), Webb has revealed never-before-seen details in this picturesque planetary nebula with a rich backdrop of thousands of stars. 

Planetary nebulae like the Red Spider Nebula form when ordinary stars like the Sun reach the end of their lives. After ballooning into cool red giants, these stars shed their outer layers and cast them into space, exposing their white-hot cores. Ultraviolet light from the central star ionises the cast-off material, causing it to glow. The planetary nebula phase of a star’s life is as fleeting as it is beautiful, lasting only a few tens of thousands of years.

The central star of the Red Spider Nebula is visible in this image, glowing just brighter than the webs of dusty gas that surround it. The surprising nature of the nebula’s tremendously hot and luminous central star has been revealed by Webb’s NIRCam. In optical-wavelength images, such as from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, the star appears faint and blue. But in the NIRCam images, it shows up as red: thanks to its sensitive near-infrared capabilities, Webb has revealed a shroud of hot dust surrounding the central star. This hot dust likely orbits the central star, in a disc structure.

Though only a single star is visible in the Red Spider’s heart, a hidden companion star may lurk there as well. A stellar companion could explain the nebula’s shape, including its characteristic narrow waist and wide outflows. This hourglass shape is seen in other planetary nebulae such as the Butterfly Nebula, which Webb also recently observed.

The heart of galaxy M77 is shining so brightly in this Webb telescope image, it nearly outshines the galaxy itself. The intense glow is due to gas being pulled by the strong gravity of the central black hole into a tight and rapid orbit around it. The motion of the gas causes it to heat up, releasing tremendous amounts of radiation.

Webb teamed up with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, observing Saturn in complementary wavelengths of light to give us a richer, more layered understanding of its atmosphere. These images were each captured in 2024, just 14 weeks apart from each other.

 In both images, we’re seeing the sunlit face of Saturn’s rings; in Webb’s infrared view (left), the rings look extremely bright because they are made of highly reflective water ice. Webb’s image also highlights the long-lived jet stream known as the “ribbon wave” across the northern mid-latitudes. The small spot just below that represents a remnant from the “Great Springtime Storm” of 2011 and 2012 with several other storms dotting the southern hemisphere. Saturn’s poles also appear distinctly gray-green in this image. This color could come from a layer of high-altitude aerosols in Saturn’s atmosphere that scatters light differently at those latitudes. Another possible explanation is auroral activity, as charged molecules interacting with the planet’s magnetic field can produce glowing emissions near the poles.

 Both images sense sunlight reflected from Saturn’s banded clouds and hazes. Hubble’s visible light view (right) reveals subtle color variations across the planet while Webb’s infrared view senses clouds and chemicals at many different depths in the atmosphere, from the deep clouds to the tenuous upper atmosphere.

 

The Universe is an amazing creation.