Astrophysicist | Deputy Director @iExoplanets @OMM_Officiel | @NASAWebb 🍁 Outreach Scientist | Wasian |✨Science is for everyone✨(she/her) Opinions are my own.
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ALT Together, two merging galaxies form a bean-like shape just below the center of this image. The cores of the galaxies are colored blue, and one is above and to the left of the other. These two cores are surrounded by bright tendrils of coral star-forming regions, which stretch above and below. To the right of the top galactic core is a particularly bright star-formation clump with faint diffraction spikes. The lower galaxy is a mostly regular spiral shape, while the upper galaxy has been distorted into a much more condensed bun. There is also a semi-transparent arc of pale dust above both merging galaxies. The background is black, and many tiny distant galaxies dot the scene.
ALT A forming protostar surrounded by a large hourglass-shaped nebula. A bright orange object, the protostar, lies at the center of this image. In front of the protostar is a thin grey line, which is the protostar’s accretion disk. Above the protostar is an orange, triangular cloud of gas that points to the top left of the image. The area closest to the protostar is a brighter orange than the area to the top left, and has more pronounced plumes of orange gas. Below the protostar is another triangular cloud of gas that points to the bottom right of the image. The area closest to the protostar is a blend of pronounced blue and orange plumes of gas. Farther toward the bottom right, the color of the gas turns primarily blue. Stars and galaxies of many different shapes and sizes are scattered around the image, although they are noticeably more absent on the left side of the hourglass.
ALT Collage of 9 Webb costumes. Top row, left to right: Young boy in a striped green shirt has a Webb mirror headpiece with long struts sticking out. Toddler in an astronaut suit, pink bow, & too-big blue shoes has a Webb mirror cutout over her head. Bald man with dark facial hair has the Webb spacecraft sticking out of his torso, including the mirrors and 5-layer sunshield. Second row, left to right: Toddler in star headband & Webb mirror costume next to woman in NASA cleanroom suit. Man with a Webb mirror on his torso. Woman poses with a space backdrop in a Webb mirror costume. Last row, left to right: Dad with the Webb mirror around his shoulders & struts extending beyond his head. Below him is a toddler in a blue toy car. Behind them is a "dinosaur" skeleton display. Next, a woman wearing a paper-mache Webb mirror around her torso and a man in a black NASA shirt and bald cap. Last, a woman with the Webb mirror in front of her torso, silver foil sunshield "skirt,” & galaxy leggings.
ALT Three prominent pillars of semi-opaque gas and dust, each in spectral shades of gray-blue, start at the bottom left and reach toward the top right. From left to right, each pillar is consecutively smaller. Together, they appear like a ghostly hand. Towards the top of the leftmost pillar, there is one prominent red star, with tiny spikes at its tip. Lower on this pillar, there are several darker areas of dust that jut out like protrusions, some also with stars that appear as small red dots. The other two pillars are below and to the right of the first pillar. The background of this scene takes on glowing shades of orange-red mixed with black, with the strongest bright orange hues dipping into a V shape at the top center of the image. Scattered throughout the image are a few dozen tiny bright white and blue stars. Larger stars appear like red orbs and are embedded in the pillars.
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 This Webb image shows a bright dot at the center of star-filled black space. The bright dot is actually two stars meeting, as their orbits bring them together every 8 years. The stellar pair are surrounded by 17 rings of gas and dust that appear orangish pink, like the rings of a tree trunk. The rings have a slight rectangular shape and are very clear and defined starting at about 1 o’clock on a clockface. The rings start to break up a bit to our view traveling clockwise around the image. As you arrive at the 8 o’clock position, only parts of about six rings can be seen as they disappear from view.
ALT 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.
ALT Image of Webb’s First Deep Field. Thousands of galaxies flood this near-infrared, high-resolution image of galaxy cluster SMACS. 3 stars in the centre shine very brightly against a black sky.
