A new look at the Pillars of Creation. In October, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captured views of the Pillars of Creation, a region within the Eagle nebula, in near-infrared and mid-infrared ranges. This newly released image combines the two views, revealing spectacular new detail in the immense pillars of dust and star-forming regions like the reddish glows seen in the tips of some of the pillars. The Pillars of Creation are about 6,500 light-years away from Earth, and are about five light-years across. #

A Galactic Merger. A view of Arp 282, an interacting galaxy pair composed of the Seyfert galaxy NGC 169 (bottom) and the galaxy IC 1559 above. Tidal forces between the two massive galaxies are beginning to distort their shapes, as gas, dust, and entire solar systems are drawn away from one galaxy towards the other by their gravitational pull. #

Gravity's Lens. This observation from the Hubble Space Telescope shows a gravitationally-lensed galaxy called SGAS J143845+145407. The lensing here has resulted in a split, mirrored image of the distant reddish-colored galaxy at the center of this image. Gravitational lensing occurs when a massive celestial body curves spacetime, bending the path of light that passes nearby. #

Rings and Auroras. This image shows a false-color infrared composite image of Jupiter obtained by the James Webb Space Telescope on July 27, 2022. The planet’s auroras, its rings, and some of its small satellites are visible along with background galaxies. #

A Cosmic Tarantula. This new view of the Tarantula Nebula, seen by the James Webb Space Telescope, displays the nebula's star-forming region, including tens of thousands of never-before-seen young stars that were previously shrouded in cosmic dust, in a view that spans 340 light-years across. The most active region appears to sparkle with massive young stars, appearing pale blue. Scattered among them are still-embedded stars, appearing red, yet to emerge from the dusty cocoon of the nebula. #

The Phantom Galaxy. The arms of spiral galaxy M74 are studded with rosy pink regions of fresh star formation in this image from Hubble. M74—also known as the Phantom Galaxy—lies around 32 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Pisces. The reddish blooms are huge clouds of hydrogen gas which are made to glow by the ultraviolet radiation from hot, young stars embedded within them. #

A Ball of Stars. This Hubble Space Telescope image shows a globular cluster named Messier 92, which lies about 26,700 light-years away from Earth. Located in the northern constellation of Hercules, this tightly-packed ball of stars was first discovered by astronomer Johann Elert Bode in 1777. Messier 92 is one of the brightest globular clusters in the Milky Way, and is visible to the naked eye under good observing conditions. It is densely packed, with about 330,000 stars clustered in a ball about 100 light-years across. #

A Colorful Sea of Clouds. In 2018, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope took this amazing and colorful image of the Lagoon Nebula. The whole nebula, about 4,000 light-years away, is an incredible 55 light-years wide and 20 light-years tall. This image shows only a small part of this turbulent star-formation region, less than four light-years across. #

Galactic Wings. Two merging galaxies in the VV689 system, nicknamed the Angel Wing, feature in this image from Hubble. Unlike chance alignments of galaxies which only appear to overlap as seen from our vantage point on Earth, these two galaxies are in the midst of a collision. Multiple other galaxies of varying shapes, sizes, and distances are seen in the background. #

A Glowing Caterpillar. In the central region of the Carina Nebula, many star-forming regions can be seen, including several small, dense clouds known as Bok globules. This Bok globule, nicknamed the "caterpillar," has glowing edges that indicate that it is being photoionized by the hottest stars in the cluster. #

A Galactic Gathering. The Hickson Compact Group 40 is an unusual close-knit collection of five galaxies about 300 million light-years away, captured here by the Hubble Space Telescope as they fall together before they ultimately merge. #

Concentric Shells. This image made by the James Webb Space Telescope shows shells of cosmic dust that were created by the interaction of binary stars, appearing like tree rings around Wolf-Rayet 140. The regularity of the shells’ spacing indicates that they form like clockwork during the stars’ eight-year orbit cycle, when the two members of the binary make their closest approach to one another. #

A Cosmic Wreath. The bright southern hemisphere star RS Puppis, at the center of the image, is surrounded by a gossamer cocoon of reflective dust illuminated by the star. The huge star rhythmically brightens and dims over a six-week cycle. It is one of the most luminous in the class of so-called Cepheid variable stars. Its average intrinsic brightness is 15,000 times greater than our Sun's luminosity. The nebula flickers in brightness as pulses of light from the Cepheid propagate outwards, a phenomenon called a "light echo." #

An Exploding Hourglass. Sharpless 2-106 is a nebula several light-years across, seen here by Hubble in 2011. It lies 2,000 light years away, in a relatively isolated region of the Milky Way galaxy. A massive young star is responsible for the furious activity we see inside the nebula. Twin lobes of super-hot gas, glowing blue in this image, stretch outward from the central star. A ring of dust and gas orbiting the star acts like a belt, cinching the expanding nebula into an hourglass shape. #

An Ocean of Galaxies. Nearly every bright object you see in this image is a distant galaxy made of billions of stars. A swath of sky measuring just two percent of the area covered by the Full Moon was imaged by the Webb’s telescope in eight filters and by Hubble in three filters, and combined into this, only a small portion of the full PEARLS field, which will be about four times larger. The PEARLS (Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science) program will eventually generate an image of a tiny portion of the night sky, about one-twelfth the area of the full moon, revealing thousands of galaxies—many never seen before—allowing scientists to study how galaxies form and evolve. #

The Monkey Head Nebula. About 6,400 light-years away, NGC 2174, also known as the Monkey Head nebula, is mostly composed of hydrogen gas, sculpted by ultraviolet light carving into the cool gas and dust. As the interstellar dust particles are warmed from the radiation from the stars in the center of the nebula, they heat up and begin to glow at infrared wavelengths. #

A Speeding Galaxy. Spiral galaxy ESO 137-001 is zooming toward the upper right of this image, in between other galaxies in the Norma cluster located over 200 million light-years away. The spiral plows through the seething intra-cluster gas so rapidly—at nearly 4.5 million miles per hour—much of its own gas is caught and torn away. Astronomers call this "ram pressure stripping." The galaxy's stars remain intact due to the binding force of their gravity. #

A Tapestry of Stars. This Hubble image shows a giant cluster of about 3,000 stars called Westerlund 2. The cluster resides in a stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29, located 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina. #

Peering Into the Phantom Galaxy. This image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the heart of M74, otherwise known as the Phantom Galaxy, showing delicate filaments of gas and dust in the spiral arms that wind out from the center of this image. A lack of gas in the nuclear region also provides an unobscured view of the nuclear star cluster at the galaxy's center. The Phantom Galaxy is around 32 million light-years away, and lies almost face-on to Earth. #

A Wall of Gas and Dust. A portion of the open cluster NGC 6530 appears as a roiling wall of smoke studded with stars in this image from the Hubble Space Telescope. NGC 6530 is a collection of several thousand stars that are about 4,350 light-years from Earth, set within the larger Lagoon Nebula. #

A Keyhole in Space. This Hubble image showcases NGC 1999, a reflection nebula in the constellation Orion, around 1,350 light-years from Earth. It is composed of detritus left over from the formation of a newborn star. Like fog curling around a street lamp, reflection nebulae like NGC 1999 only shine because of the light from an embedded source, such as the newborn star V380 Orionis which is visible at center. The prominent dark patch is actually a view through the structure, showing an empty region of space beyond. #

Overlapping Spirals. Two spiral galaxies are pictured in this Hubble image, named SDSS J115331 and LEDA 2073461. They lie more than a billion light-years away. Despite appearing to collide in this image, the alignment of the two galaxies is likely just by chance—the two are not actually interacting. #

The Horsehead in Infrared. This Hubble image shows part of the sky in the constellation of Orion. Rising like a giant seahorse from turbulent waves of dust and gas is the Horsehead Nebula, otherwise known as Barnard 33. This image shows the region in infrared light, which has longer wavelengths than visible light and can pierce through the dusty material that usually obscures the nebula’s inner regions. #

A Galactic Neighbor. The Webb telescope peers into the stars of nearby dwarf galaxy Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte. Just 3 million light-years from Earth, WLM is considered a dwarf galaxy in our galactic neighborhood. Countless white stars, interspersed with yellow and orange background galaxies of various shapes, dot the black background. #

Sculpting a Nebula. The bright star at the center of NGC 3132, while prominent when viewed by NASA’s Webb Telescope in near-infrared light, plays a supporting role in shaping the surrounding nebula. A second star, barely visible at lower left along one of the bright star’s diffraction spikes, is the nebula’s source. It has ejected at least eight layers of gas and dust over thousands of years. But the bright central star visible here has helped “stir” the pot, changing the shape of this planetary nebula’s highly intricate rings by creating turbulence. The pair of stars are locked in a tight orbit, which leads the dimmer star to spray ejected material in a range of directions as they orbit one another, resulting in these jagged rings. #