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NASA Webb Telescope
@NASAWebb
The world's most powerful space telescope. Launched: Dec. 25, 2021. First images revealed: July 12, 2022. Verification: nasa.gov/socialmedia
Lagrange Point 2webb.nasa.govJoined April 2009
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NASA Webb Telescope’s Tweets

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NASA Webb Telescope
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#NASAWebb is fully deployed! 🎉 With the successful deployment & latching of our last mirror wing, that's: 50 major deployments, complete. 178 pins, released. 20+ years of work, realized. Next to #UnfoldTheUniverse: traveling out to our orbital destination of Lagrange point 2!
The James Webb Space Telescope's primary mirror during "center of curvature" mirror testing at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center. The technician, on left, shines a flashlight at the mirror.
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This is what you’ve waited for. Journey with us through Webb’s breathtaking view of the Pillars of Creation, where scores of newly formed stars glisten like dewdrops among floating, translucent columns of gas and dust: go.nasa.gov/3EPPiXW Here’s your guided tour ⬇️
This Webb image of the “Pillars of Creation” has layers of semi-opaque, rusty red gas and dust that start at the bottom left and go toward the top right. There are three prominent pillars rising toward the top right. The left pillar is the largest and widest. The peaks of the second and third pillars are set off in darker shades of brown and have red outlines. Peeking through the layers of gas and dust is the background, set in shades of blue and littered with tiny yellow and blue stars. Many of the tips of the pillars appear tinged with what looks like lava. There are also tiny red dots at the edges of the pillars, which are newly born stars.
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1. Make way for the king of the solar system! 👑 New Webb images of Jupiter highlight the planet's features, including its turbulent Great Red Spot (shown in white here), in amazing detail. These images were processed by citizen scientist Judy Schmidt: go.nasa.gov/3K9zMqC
Jupiter dominates the black background of space. The image is a composite, and shows Jupiter in enhanced color, featuring the planet’s turbulent Great Red Spot, which appears white here. The planet is striated with swirling horizontal stripes of neon turquoise, periwinkle, light pink, and cream. The stripes interact and mix at their edges like cream in coffee. Along both of the poles, the planet glows in turquoise. Bright orange auroras glow just above the planet’s surface at both poles.
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Uranus has never looked better. Really. Only Voyager 2 and Keck (with adaptive optics) have imaged the planet's faintest rings before, and never as clearly as Webb’s first glimpse at this ice giant, which also highlights bright atmospheric features. go.nasa.gov/3nTo3oO
The planet Uranus on a black background. The planet appears light blue with a large, white patch on the right side. On the edge of that patch at the upper left is a bright white spot. Another white spot is located on the left side of the planet at the 9 o’clock position. 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.
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This is it: we’ve just wrapped up one of the most challenging steps of our journey to #UnfoldTheUniverse. With all five layers of sunshield tensioning complete, about 75% of our 344 single-point failures have been retired!
Image from October 2019 after the completion of deployment testing for the Webb telescsope's silver 5-layer, kite-shaped sunshield.
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Time to reinvent the wheel. Here’s the Cartwheel Galaxy in a whole new light — as a composite image from 2 instruments on the Webb telescope. Webb uniquely offers not just a snapshot of the galaxy’s current state, but also a peek into its past & future: go.nasa.gov/3SfEQgR
A large galaxy on the right, with two much smaller companion galaxies to the left at 10 o’clock and 9 o’clock. The large galaxy resembles a speckled wheel, with an oval outer ring and a small, off-center inner ring. The outer ring contains pink plumes like wheel spokes, with dusty blue regions in between. The pink areas are silicate dust, while the blue areas are pockets of young stars and hydrocarbon dust. The inner ring is smoother, filled in with a more uniform pale pink. This smaller ring is interwoven with thin, orange-pink threads. On the galaxy's right edge, a bright white star with 8 diffraction spikes shines. The two companion galaxies to the left, one above the other, are about the same size and both spiral galaxies. The galaxy above is a reverse S shape but similar in coloring and texture as the large ring galaxy. The galaxy below is smoother and largely white, with a blue tinge. The background is black and full of more distant, orange-red colored galaxies of various sizes.
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Countdown to a new star ⏳ Hidden in the neck of this “hourglass” of light are the very beginnings of a new star — a protostar. The clouds of dust and gas within this region are only visible in infrared light, the wavelengths that Webb specializes in: go.nasa.gov/3TKluzI
An hourglass-shaped, multi-color cloud set against the black, starry background of space. This cloud of dust and gas is illuminated by light from a protostar, a star in the earliest stages of formation. The upper “bulb” of the hourglass is orange, while the lower “bulb” transitions from white to dark blue. Together, the two bulbs stretch out like butterfly wings turned 90 degrees to the side. Extending from the upper and lower bulbs are long, wispy filaments of color, looking almost like burning fire. In the center of the hourglass shape is a small, dark demarcation line. This line is an edge-on view of a protoplanetary disk, a disk of material being pulled into a star as it forms.
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📞 Hello Webb? It's us, Earth! Our team just deployed the gimbaled antenna assembly, which includes Webb’s high-data-rate dish antenna. This antenna will be used to send at least 28.6 Gbytes of data down from the observatory, twice a day: go.nasa.gov/3qnXZQt
Animation of Webb's antenna deployment
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Webb’s first full-color images are now the world’s to enjoy! We hope you found them as meaningful and beautiful as we did. Here’s to many years of Webb science — we can’t wait to see what’s next as we continue to #UnfoldtheUniverse!
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NASA Reveals Webb Telescope’s First Images of Unseen Universe
The dawn of a new era in astronomy has begun as the world gets its first look at the full capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA...
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If you held a grain of sand up to the sky at arm’s length, that tiny speck is the size of Webb’s view in this image. Imagine — galaxies galore within a grain, including light from galaxies that traveled billions of years to us!
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Bonus image! When it’s time to focus, sometimes you need to take a good look at yourself. This “selfie” taken by Webb of its primary mirror was not captured by an externally mounted engineering camera, but with a special lens within its NIRCam instrument. #UnfoldTheUniverse
A black and white image of the primary mirror of the Webb Telescope. All the segments but one are dimly lit. One segment is bright white from reflected starlight.
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✅ Secondary mirror deployed! But there's little time to pause and reflect. Teams will ensure
@NASAWebb
's tripod structure is latched before beginning its final major milestone this week: full deployment of the space telescope's honeycomb-shaped primary mirror.
The secondary mirror support structure of the James Webb Space Telescope is fully deployed on the ground in a test at Northrop Grumman.
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Stars: always making a dramatic exit! 🌟 Webb’s powerful infrared eye has captured never-before-seen detail of Cassiopeia A (Cas A). 11,000 light-years away, it is the remnant of a massive star that exploded about 340 years ago: go.nasa.gov/3ZJnk72
A circular-shaped nebula with a complex structure. On the circle’s exterior, particularly on the left side of the image, are curtains of material glowing orange like fire. Interior to this outer shell is a ring of mottled filaments in bright pink, studded with clumps and knots. A greenish loop extends from the upper right of the ring into the central cavity. Translucent wisps of blue, green, and red appear throughout the image.
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Galaxies collide in Stephan’s Quintet, pulling and stretching each other in a gravitational dance. In the mid-infrared view here, see how Webb pierces through dust, giving new insight into how interactions like these may have driven galaxy evolution in the early universe.
Stephan’s Quintet, a collection of five galaxies, as seen by MIRI on the James Webb Space Telescope. The galaxies all glow in different colors, surrounded by lacy, glowing clouds of gas and dust. Four of the five are centered in the image. Three are visibly spiral galaxies, with tendrils extending out from their glowing centers. The galaxy farthest to the left appears slightly more clearly, with vibrant blue lacing surrounding the oval-shaped light of the galaxy. This is because the farthest left galaxy is not interacting with the other four; it’s actually far in the foreground from the others. The galaxies all appear against a field of sparkling stars and other, farther galaxies.
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This isn’t the farthest back we’ve observed. Non-infrared missions like COBE & WMAP saw the universe closer to the Big Bang (~380,000 years after), when there was only microwave background radiation, but no stars or galaxies. Webb sees a few 100 million years after the Big Bang.
This detailed, oval map of the infant universe was created from nine years of WMAP data. The image reveals temperature fluctuations of gas in the universe about 380,000 years after the Big Bang, shown as color differences on the map. Throughout the map, there are speckles of blue and green with some yellow and red. These speckles correspond to the seeds that grew to become the first galaxies.
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Catch your breath — Webb has captured the first clear evidence of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere of a planet outside of our solar system! WASP-39 B is a gas giant closely orbiting a Sun-like star 700 light years away: go.nasa.gov/3PIRGSc
The graphic shows the transmission spectrum of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-39 b, captured using Webb's NIRSpec Bright Object Time-Series Spectroscopy mode, and is titled accordingly. An illustration of the planet and its star is in the background. The vertical y axis is labeled “amount of light blocked” and runs from 2.00 percent (less light blocked) to 2.35 percent (more light blocked). The x axis is labeled “wavelength of light” and ranges from 3.00 microns to 5.6 microns. The data points are plotted as white circles with gray error margin bars running through the circles. A curvy blue line represents a best-fit model. A prominent peak in the blue line is labeled “Carbon Dioxide, CO2,” indicating the presence of carbon dioxide in the exoplanet. This peak is centered around 4.3 microns and has a y value of between 2.25 and 2.30 percent of light blocked. The baseline is between 2.10 and 2.17 percent.
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Two cameras are better than one, as seen in this combined view from Webb’s NIRCam & MIRI! In the near-infrared, we see hundreds of stars and background galaxies. Meanwhile, the mid-infrared shows us dusty planet-forming disks (in red and pink) around young stars.
A composite image of the Cosmic Cliffs in the Carina Nebula, created with the Webb telescope’s NIRCam and MIRI instruments. Pinkish brown clouds of gas and dust dominate the foreground of the image, glittering with young stars. Behind the glowing, mountainous clouds, the sky appears navy blue, with shining stars and galaxies.
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The “Cosmic Cliffs” build on the legacy of Hubble’s imagery of the Carina Nebula, seen here. Webb’s new view gives us a rare peek into stars in their earliest, rapid stages of formation. For an individual star, this period only lasts about 50,000 to 100,000 years.
This Hubble image of the Carina Nebula shows the same region as a new Webb telescope image. Hills and valleys of gas and dust are displayed in intricate detail, cutting through a star-forming region. Wispy tendrils of gas, as well as dark trunks of dust, are set amid a backdrop of soft, glowing blue light. The glowing nebula has been carved out by intense ultraviolet radiation and stellar winds from several hot, young stars. The image also reveals dramatic dark towers of cool gas and dust that rise above the glowing wall of gas. The dense gas at the top resists the blistering ultraviolet radiation from the central stars, and creates a tower that points in the direction of the energy flow.
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Last July, Webb released the deepest & sharpest infrared image ever seen. Zooming in, scientists found 3 young galaxies similar to a rare type of galaxy in our cosmic backyard — including what may be the most chemically primitive galaxy identified. go.nasa.gov/3ilQHNh
Gif showing a cropped view of Webb’s very first image released: galaxy cluster SMACS 0723. The background is black, with thousands of orange and white galaxies scattered across the view. As it plays, the gif highlights 3 tiny red galaxies, each placed in a small white inset box. 2 are found in the top right, and one is towards the upper left. The inset boxes are all above a very bright star with 8 long diffraction spikes, seen in the bottom left quadrant.
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You’re hot and you’re cold… 🎵 #NASAWebb is split into a “hot side” and “cold side” by its sunshield. The sunshield will always be facing the Sun to block out heat and light, as Webb's mirrors need to stay extremely cold to observe faint heat signals in the universe!
The Two Sides of the Webb Telescope. Hot side 185 F/85 C, solar panel/communications antenna/computer/steering: reaction wheels & jets/light from the Sun. Cold side -388 F/-233 C, science instruments/detectors & filters/mirrors Credit: STScI
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Check out the bright waves, swirls, and vortices in Jupiter’s atmosphere — as well as the dark ring system, one million times fainter than the planet! Two moons of Jupiter, including one that’s only about 12 miles (20 km) across, are on the left.
A wide field view showcases Jupiter in the upper right quadrant. The planet’s swirling horizontal stripes are rendered in blues, browns, and cream. Electric blue auroras glow above Jupiter’s north and south poles. A white glow emanates out from the auroras. Along the planet’s equator, rings glow in a faint white. These rings are one million times fainter than the planet itself! At the far left edge of the rings, a moon appears as a tiny white dot. This moon is only about 12 miles (20 km) across. Slightly further to the left, another moon, about 100 miles (150 km) across, glows with tiny white diffraction spikes. The rest of the image is the blackness of space, with faintly glowing white galaxies in the distance.
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Webb's mosaic is its largest image to date, covering an area of the sky 1/5 of the Moon’s diameter (as seen from Earth). It contains more than 150 million pixels and is constructed from about 1,000 image files. Compare the new image to
@NASAHubble
’s 2009 view, shown here!
Stephan's Quintet, captured here by Hubble, is a group of five galaxies. However, the galaxy at the upper left is much closer to Earth than the rest of the group. Three of the galaxies have distorted shapes, elongated spiral arms, and long, gaseous tidal tails containing myriad star clusters. NGC 7319, at top right, is a barred spiral with distinct spiral arms. The next galaxy clockwise appears to have two cores, but it is actually two galaxies, NGC 7318A and NGC 7318B. Encircling the galaxies are young, bright blue star clusters and pinkish clouds of glowing hydrogen where infant stars are being born. NGC 7317, at bottom left, is a normal-looking elliptical galaxy. Sharply contrasting with these galaxies is the dwarf galaxy NGC 7320 at upper left. Bursts of star formation occur in the galaxy's disk. These farther members are markedly redder than the foreground galaxy, suggesting that older stars reside in their cores.
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Space, but make it goth! 🕸️ If this new image from Webb’s mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) looks dark & moody, that's because things look different in this light than what you may be used to. These are the "bones” of galaxy IC 5332, usually hidden by dust: bit.ly/3dSuzrj
Image of galaxy IC 5332 as taken by the Webb telescope’s MIRI instrument, resembling gray cobwebs in the shape of a spiral. These “cobwebs” are patterns of gas spread throughout the galaxy. The core of the galaxy glows a dark blue. Stars, seen as tiny blue dots, are scattered throughout the image. There are also sparser, larger red dots spread out among the spiral arms. The background of the image is dark.
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It’s a great big universe… Webb’s new view of Pandora’s Cluster stitches 4 snapshots together into a panorama, showing 3 separate galaxy clusters merging into a megacluster and some 50,000 sources of near-infrared light. go.nasa.gov/3E7zmPu
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. Scattered between these areas are many smaller sources of light; some also have a hazy white glow, while many other are red or orange. Even without zooming in, different galaxy shapes are detectable, like spirals, ovals, and arcs.
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"This is a whole new chapter in astronomy." Webb researchers found 2 early galaxies, one of which may contain the most distant starlight ever seen. These 2 unexpectedly bright galaxies could fundamentally alter what we know about the very first stars: go.nasa.gov/3XdhoDa
Countless glowing galaxies of all shapes and sizes speckle the black backdrop of space. Some are spiral, some more disk-shaped and others spherical. Farther galaxies are only seen as dots. Their colors include blue, pink, orange, and white. Towards the center left, a red dot of a galaxy, along with some surrounding streaks of galaxies, are framed in a tiny white box. This box is attached to a close-up view in a much larger inset box. The red dot is a never-before-seen primordial galaxy discovered by Webb, thought to have existed 350 million years after the big bang.
Large, bright white stars with long diffraction spikes are seen among countless glowing galaxies of all shapes and sizes against the black backdrop of space. Some galaxies are spiral, some more disk-shaped and others spherical. Farther galaxies are only seen as dots. Their colors include blue, pink, orange, and white. Towards the bottom left, a small reddish disk is framed in a tiny white box. This box is attached to a close-up view in a much larger inset box. This red disk is a never-before-seen primordial galaxy discovered by Webb, thought to have existed 450 million years after the big bang.]
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Feel like you’re spiraling? You’re in good company! Webb’s images of NGC 1365 (left), NGC 7496 (top) & NGC 1433 (bottom) reveal the galaxies' networks of gas and dust in incredible detail. The data is part of an ongoing Webb survey of 19 spiral galaxies: go.nasa.gov/3YzvAXj
The Webb telescope's image of NGC 1365, showing a close-up of a wispy spiral galaxy on a black background. The galaxy features a glowing, light pink core in an elongated oval shape. Red streaks appear to emanate out of the core. The lower right portion of the galaxy’s arms extend out of frame in a curve. Throughout the image, a smattering of tiny red dots represent background galaxies.
The Webb telescope's image of NGC 7496. It shows a gray spiral galaxy with a web-like texture, set against a black background. Eight red diffraction spikes extend out from its extremely bright core. Scattered colorful dots in the background represent background galaxies.
The Webb telescope's image of NGC 1433, showing a greenish-gray spiral galaxy with a bright white, circular core. The core has a swirling structural detail that evokes water circling a drain. The galaxy's spiral arms look like spider web threads in texture. Red dots are scattered throughout the black background.
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You're looking at 45,000+ galaxies. This image was taken as part of the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES) — a massive science program that’s revolutionizing what we know about galaxies in the early universe: go.nasa.gov/3CdLq0s Here are the highlights ⬇️
Thousands of small galaxies are scattered on a black background. Some are noticeably spirals, either face-on or edge-on, while others are blobby ellipticals. Many are too small to discern any structure. A few spirals are bluish, but most of the galaxies appear yellow or red. A handful of stars display eight-point diffraction spikes.
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There’s more than one way to experience space imagery! You can hear the sounds of a black hole…
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NASA Exoplanets
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The misconception that there is no sound in space originates because most space is a ~vacuum, providing no way for sound waves to travel. A galaxy cluster has so much gas that we've picked up actual sound. Here it's amplified, and mixed with other data, to hear a black hole!
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As we continue our million mile (1.5 million km) journey out to our orbit, we'd just like to thank each of you for following us as we #UnfoldTheUniverse! You're all one in a million (miles) in our hearts ❤️
GIF of a beauty shot of the James Webb Space Telescope's gold-coated primary mirror, lit up in a dark cleanroom.
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There is beauty in transience. 🌸 Webb’s stunning image of a super bright, massive Wolf-Rayet star calls forth the ephemeral nature of cherry blossoms. The Wolf-Rayet phase is a fleeting stage that only some stars go through, soon before they explode: go.nasa.gov/3Ln74VC
A prominent, eight-pointed star shines in bright white at the center of this image. A clumpy cloud of material surrounds this central star, with more material above and below than on the sides, in some places allowing background stars to peek through. The cloud material is a dark yellow closer to the star, and turns a pinkish purple at its outer edges. Combined together, the central star and its cloud resemble the delicate petals of a cherry blossom. The black background features many smaller white stars scattered throughout.
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That’s no star. It’s Neptune’s large, unusual moon, Triton! Because Triton is covered in frozen, condensed nitrogen, it reflects 70% of the sunlight that hits it — making it appear very bright to Webb. 6 of Neptune’s other moons (labeled) are also seen here.
Webb’s view of Neptune and its moons. Here, a large, prominent 8-pointed object, colored in teal, is labeled in small white text as Neptune’s moon Triton on the upper left. A small, pearl-like Neptune is below and to the right of Triton. Neptune’s rings are a standout feature. Surrounding Neptune and its rings are 6 other moons, seen as tiny dots, and labeled (clockwise, starting from 3 o’clock): Despina, Proteus, Larissa, Thalassa, Naiad, Galatea. The background is dark and sprinkled with a few other distant galaxies.
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Webb has a new achievement under its (asteroid) belt! This image is our first infrared look at an asteroid belt outside our solar system. Webb reveals there are actually 3 belts, including 2 never-before-seen inner belts, around the star of Fomalhaut: go.nasa.gov/42dH7h6
The Webb telescope’s image of the dusty debris disk around the star Fomalhaut. On a dark background, a slanted oval in varying shades of rust orange extends from the 1 o’clock to 7’oclock positions. It features multiple layers, including 3 belts made up of objects analogous to asteroids and comets. Going from the outside-in, there is first a prominent outer ring, then a darker gap, an intermediate ring, a narrower dark gap, and finally a bright yellow-orange inner disk. At the center of the inner disk is a ragged black spot, indicating a lack of data due to saturation.
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Space telescopes, assemble! X-ray *and* heat vision? It might sound like something out of a comic book, but that’s what happens when you combine the abilities of
@ChandraXRay
and Webb, as seen in these new composite images: s.si.edu/chandrawebb
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Chandra & Webb, together at last! Webb's infrared abilities combined with Chandra's X-ray vision underscore how the power of any of NASA's telescopes is only enhanced when joined with other instruments, both in space and on the ground. More: s.si.edu/chandrawebb
Four distinct composite images presented in a two-by-two grid. Upper left, an image of five galaxies known as Stephan's Quintet. Upper right, is an image of the Cartwheel galaxy, a neon pink disk with an outer ring, and a solid, slightly off-center spiraling core. Lower left, an image of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 which contains hundreds of individual galaxies in a sea of black space. Lower right, an image of the Carina Nebula, which resembles a rust brown mountain range backed by a hazy blue night sky. Full visual descriptions of these images are available at the link in the post and as alternative text for the individual images below.
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A Titan-ic success! Here is Webb’s first look at Saturn’s largest moon, Titan. Because Titan has a dense atmosphere, its surface is hidden in visible light. Enter Webb’s infrared eye, which captured clouds as well as bright & dark patches on its surface: go.nasa.gov/3FijpXN
Side-by-side images of Saturn’s moon Titan, captured by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera on November 4, 2022. Left image labeled “lower atmosphere and clouds” is various shades of red, from nearly black to nearly white. Three bright spots are labeled. Spot along the edge at 11 o’clock is labeled “Cloud A.” A larger, brighter spot at 1 o’clock is labeled “Cloud B.” A nearly white, crescent-shaped spot along the bottom from about 5 to 7 o’clock is labeled “Atmospheric Haze.” Right image labeled “atmosphere and surface,” is shades of white, blue, and brown. Clouds A and B are bright spots in the same locations as in the left-hand image. Cloud A, at 11 o’clock, is quite small and subtle. Cloud B, at 1 o’clock, is brighter and appears larger than in the left-hand image. Three surface features are labeled: Dark patch near Cloud A labeled “Kraken Mare.” Dark patch in middle lower right quadrant labeled “Belet.” Bright patch just inside the edge at about 4 o’clock labeled “Adiri.”
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No sugar or spice, but everything ice ❄️ In this molecular cloud (a birthplace of stars & planets), Webb scientists found a variety of icy ingredients. These frozen molecules, like carbon dioxide and methane, could go on to become building blocks of life. go.nasa.gov/3Xy07Vd
A Webb image of the central region of the Chamaeleon I dark molecular cloud, which resides 630 light-years away. This image primarily shows blue smoky wisps on a dark background. The left top side additionally features orange and white wisps. Just below them are four bright points of light. Three are orange and one is a mix of white and orange. Each of these points have Webb’s signature 8-point diffraction spikes emanating around them in long, thick orange lines, so that they look like huge snowflakes. Scattered throughout the image are distant stars or galaxies in shades of red, orange and blue, seen as tiny blobs.
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Talk about out of this world! This is Webb’s first direct image of a planet outside of our solar system, and it hints at Webb’s future possibilities for studying distant worlds: go.nasa.gov/3KGJ9OU Not what you expected? Let’s walk through the details👇
The star HIP 65426 & 4 views of its planet “b.” The background (Digitized Sky survey) image is black with white & blue stars. Star HIP 65426 is labeled at top center. It has 4 diffraction spikes (telescope artifacts) at the top, bottom, left, & right. Diagonal lines down from the star to the bottom of the image highlight 4 inset boxes. From L to R, 1st is Webb’s NIRCam view of the exoplanet. It's a purple dot with purple bars at 11 & 5 o’clock. The bars are telescope artifacts, not physically present. The planet & artifacts have been colored purple. The filter label says: F300M (3 micrometers). Next is a similar NIRCam view using filter F444W (4.44 micrometers), colored blue & with artifact bars. Next is a MIRI view, colored orange. No bars are present. The filter is F1140C (11.40 micrometers). Last, a MIRI view (a large red dot) with filter F1550C (15.50 micrometers). A white star icon on all 4 images represents the parent star.
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Takes two to tango 💃 270 million light-years away, a pair of entwined galaxies are colliding together, creating new stars at a rate more than 20 times that of our Milky Way. Webb's latest image shines a new light on these interacting galaxies: bit.ly/3sqrenh
A Webb telescope image of galactic pair IC 1623. The two galaxies appear to be swirling together into a blue and pink ball at the center of the frame. Long, blue spiral arms stretch vertically, faint at the edges. Tendrils of hot gas spread horizontally over the blue arms, mainly bright coral pink with many small gold spots of star formation. The very center of this ball of merging galaxies is extremely bright, radiating eight large, golden diffraction spikes. The background is black, with many tiny galaxies in orange and blue.
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NASA Webb Telescope
@NASAWebb
#NASAWebb has completed 2 more phases of its 3-month mirror alignment process: First, the team made adjustments to its mirror segments & updated the alignment of its secondary mirror, refining each of the 18 dots of starlight from its 18 mirror segments. #UnfoldTheUniverse
This gif shows the "before" and "after" images from Segment Alignment, when the team corrected large positioning errors of its primary mirror segments and updated the alignment of the secondary mirror. The 18 reflections of the star are arranged in a hexagonal pattern like Webb's mirrors.
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NASA Webb Telescope
@NASAWebb
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Let’s zoom out and get the big picture! Some quick Neptune facts: 📍 Far out - 30x farther from the Sun than Earth 🕶️ Hello darkness my old friend - Neptune doesn’t get much Sun, so high noon would be like a dim twilight on Earth. 🥶 Ice giant. Brr.
Zoomed out view of Neptune, its rings and its moons as captured by Webb. Neptune’s moon Triton, resembling a small teal snowflake, is the central focal point, with a tiny ringed, pearl-like Neptune below and to the right of it. The black background is filled with orange and white galaxies, 8-pointed bright stars and dots. A small white spiral galaxy in the bottom left corner is particularly visible.
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