Webb captured the star-forming region of the Tarantula Nebula in this mosaic image spanning 340 light-years.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team
Let’s start near the house. Even here, you can see that the space is huge—more than you might realize. This is the Earth on the right, and the Moon is the small spot on the left.
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft captured this image of the Earth and Moon from a distance of 890,000 km on Oct. 13, 2022.NASA/Goddard/SwRI
Jupiter is much further away and much larger.
Jupiter, as imaged by the Juno spacecraft, in September 2017.NASA / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstädt / Seán Doran
The most famous hurricane on Jupiter alone, the Great Red Spot, is larger than Earth.
Scientists animated this Juno image of the Great Red Spot based on velocity data from the spacecraft and models of the storm’s winds.NASA / JPL-Caltech / SwRI / MSSS / Gerald Eichstadt / Justin Cowart
But the sun dwarfs all the planets. In this image of a small portion of the sun’s surface, each cell of boiling plasma is about the size of Texas.
Film from the Inouye Solar Telescope shows how the sun’s plasma moves across its surface.NSO / NSF / AURA
The planets in our solar system are more fascinating and complex than you might think. Saturn isn’t the only one with rings. See the rings of Uranus below?
An infrared view of Uranus over two days in July 2004.Lawrence Srumovsky, University of Wisconsin-Madison/W.W. Keck Observatory
James Webb Space Telescope image of Neptune and its rings. Neptune has 14 known satellites, and seven of them are visible in this image.NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
Other planets have aurora borealis too, just like the aurora borealis and the australian aurora here on Earth.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope imaged Saturn’s southern aurora in ultraviolet light on January 24, 26, and 28, 2005.NASA/Hubble/Z. Levi and J. Clark
In this infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope, you can see faint rings circling Jupiter and the aurora borealis glowing at its poles.
A wide view of Jupiter captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.NASA, the European Space Agency, and the Jupiter ERS team; Image processing by Ricardo Hueso (UPV/EHU) and Judy Schmidt
Some of Saturn’s and Jupiter’s moons show clear signs of underground oceans, where scientists believe alien life could lurk. On Enceladus, plumes of water are seen shooting up through cracks in the surface ice.
In this real-time image from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, backlighting from the sun spectacularly illuminates Enceladus’ jets of water ice.NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSI
These are the only worlds we know about. According to NASA, every star has, on average, at least one planet. You can see one orbiting the star in this image. The planet is a small blob to the right, within a disk of material surrounding the star.
A star surrounded by a circumplanetary disk, with a planet visible at the right, captured by the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array.ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO) / Benisty et al.
Moreover, new stars are being born all the time in nurseries where thick clouds of gas and dust collapse into stars. The famous Pillars of Creation is one such nursery.
Known as the Pillars of Creation, these towering tendrils of cosmic dust and gas lie at the heart of the Eagle Nebula.NASA, ESA and Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently imaged the plumes in strong infrared for the first time, revealing new stars hidden behind the dust.
Pillars of Creation in near infrared light, imaged by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.NASA, European Space Agency, Canadian Space Agency, STScI; Joseph DiPasquale (STScI), Anton M Coquemore (STScI), Alyssa Pagan (STScI).
New stars also form when galaxies collide, slowly moving past each other and squeezing the gas and dust that fills interstellar space. Space telescopes have captured many collisions like this, including the three merged galaxies below.
A three-galaxy merger captured by the Hubble Space Telescope.ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Keel, Dark Energy Survey, DOE, FNAL, DECam, CTIO, NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, SDSS Acknowledgments: J. Schmidt
Stars regularly explode and die as well, giving rise to a powerful and bright supernova.
A bubble of supernova debris, imaged using X-ray data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope.X-rays: NASA/CXC/GSFC/BJ Williams et al. ; Optical: NASA/ESA/STScI
The Hubble Space Telescope recently captured three phases of a supernova at once. The massive object was bending space-time and reflecting three different images of the explosion, at three different points in time.
The different colors of a cooled supernova at three different stages in its evolution.NASA, ESA, STScI, Wenlei Chen (UMN), Patrick Kelly (UMN), Hubble Frontier Fields
Supernovae often collapse into black holes. You may have seen the first ever photograph of a black hole…
The first-ever image of a black hole, by the Event Horizon Telescope, was released in April 2019.Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration/Maunakea Observatories via AP
…but have you seen the black hole at the center of our galaxy? Scientists believe that every galaxy has a black hole at its core.
First image of Sagittarius A*, or Sgr A*, the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy.Event Horizon Telescope collaboration
Sometimes black holes also merge, creating supermassive monsters.
This image shows close (left) and wide (right) views of the nuclei of two bright galaxies, each containing a supermassive black hole, in NGC 7727, a galaxy located 89 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Aquarius.ESO / Voggel et al. ; ESO/VST ATLAS Team. Acknowledgments: Durham University/CASU/WFAU
There are a mind-boggling number of galaxies — as many as 200 billion, astronomers estimate. Each is full of its own stars and planets.
The Stephane’s Quintet is shown here taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
This long-exposure image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope captures thousands of galaxies. If you held a grain of sand at arm’s length, that would represent the speck of the universe you see in this image.
The first deep-field infrared image from the James Webb Space Telescope, released July 11, 2022.NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
Webb has peered further into the universe than any previous telescope. This goes way back in time, as light takes billions of years to travel from these galaxies.
Webb captured the star-forming region of the Tarantula Nebula in this mosaic image spanning 340 light-years.NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team
In July, Webb spotted the oldest and most distant galaxy ever discovered. Scientists believe that it appeared 235 million years after the Big Bang. This means that it is closer to the beginning of the universe than we have seen it before.
A color image of CEERS-93316, a galaxy that researchers believe appeared only 235 million years after the Big Bang.CEERS / UOE / SOPHIE JEWELL / CLARA POLLOCK
Astronomers only know of two visitors from other star systems: a possible rock called ‘Oumuamua, and a comet that passed the Sun from interstellar space, in 2017 and 2019.
Comet 2I/Borisov, the second interstellar object discovered in our solar system. The blue and red dashes are stars in the background that appear as a line as the comet moves.Gemini Observatory / NSF / AURA / Image composite by Travis Rector
Only two human spacecraft have left our solar system: NASA’s Voyager probes. The first probe took this famous image of Earth on its way out.
The Pale Blue Dot, image of Earth taken on February 14, 1990 by NASA’s Voyager 1 at a distance of 3.7 billion miles from the Sun.NASA/JPL-Caltech
Yes, Earth, there. Carl Sagan called this point the “pale blue dot,” writing: “This is here. This is home. This is us.” Most of us will experience the rest of the universe only through images.
