ALT A black dot is surrounded by swirling, distorted stars and clouds of gas and dust.

ALT An orange-red star with its outer layers shedding off in turbulent waves of yellow-orange.

ALT A tilted galaxy with swirling, circular clouds seen in gray, pink, and blue with a bright white point of light at its center. A beam of light extends through this point.

ALT Two images of the Pillars of Creation, a star-forming region in space. At left is a near-infrared view taken by Webb’s NIRCam instrument. Three semi-transparent, rusty red-colored pillars rise from the bottom left to the top right. The background is cast in dark blue, and countless stars in yellow and white of all sizes speckle the entire scene. At right is a mid-infrared view taken by Webb’s MIRI instrument. This time, the pillars are in shades of gray-blue and take on the appearance of a ghostly hand reaching toward the right. The background glows orange-red. Scattered throughout the scene are just a few dozen white and blue stars. Some larger stars, embedded in the pillars, appear like red orbs. Compared to the NIRCam view, the MIRI pillars are denser and more opaque.