ALT A view of a solar flare on the Sun from NASA's solar dynamics observatory
ALT Aurora seen from Lummi Island, Washington, at 10:54 p.m. PT on May 10, 2024. The sky above a lake and mountain skyline is awash with green and purple light. Credit: Jeff Carter
ALT a nighttime photo shows a cluster of bright red lights high in the sky over the dark horizon. in the foreground, there is a quiet body of water
ALT 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.
ALT Satellite Image of Hurricane Ian. White and light grey clouds dominate the image except for a bright blue patch at the Hurricane’s eye, where the clouds separate enough for the ocean below to show through. An outline of Florida’s southwest coast is overlaid on the left, noting the location of the major cities Naples, Fort Myers, Cape Coral, and Sanibel Island.
ALT 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.
ALT The image is divided horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively clear upper portion. Speckled across both portions is a starfield, showing innumerable stars of many sizes. The smallest of these are small, distant, and faint points of light. The largest of these appear larger, closer, brighter, and more fully resolved with 8-point diffraction spikes. The upper portion of the image is blueish, and has wispy translucent cloud-like streaks rising from the nebula below. The orangish cloudy formation in the bottom half varies in density and ranges from translucent to opaque. The stars vary in color, the majority of which, have a blue or orange hue. The cloud-like structure of the nebula contains ridges, peaks, and valleys – an appearance very similar to a mountain range. Three long diffraction spikes from the top right edge of the image suggest the presence of a large star just out of view.
ALT The image is split down the middle, showing two views of the Southern Ring Nebula. Both feature black backgrounds speckled with tiny bright stars and distant galaxies. Both show the planetary nebula as a misshapen oval that is slightly angled from top left to bottom right and takes up the majority of each image. At left, the near-infrared image shows a bright white star at the center with long diffraction spikes. Large, transparent teal and orange ovals, which are shells ejected by the unseen central star, surround it. At right, the mid-infrared image shows two stars at the center very close to one another. The one at left is red, the smaller one at right is light blue. The blue star has tiny triangles around it. A large transparent red oval surrounds the central stars. From that extend shells in a mix of colors, which are red to the left and right and teal to the top and bottom. Overall, the oval shape of the planetary nebula appears slightly smaller than the one seen at left.
ALT The background of space is black. Thousands of galaxies appear all across the view. Their shapes and colors vary. Some are various shades of orange, others are white. Most stars appear blue, and are sometimes as large as more distant galaxies that appear next to them. A very bright star is just above and left of center. It has eight bright blue, long diffraction spikes. Between 4 o’clock and 6 o’clock in its spikes are several very bright galaxies. A group of three are in the middle, and two are closer to 4 o’clock. These galaxies are part of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, and they are warping the appearances of galaxies seen around them. Long orange arcs appear at left and right toward the center.
