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  1. NASA's Webb Telescope Studies Moon-Forming Disk Around Massive Planet

    September 29, 2025Release ID: 2025-142 Missions: Webb

    The disk offers insight into how the moons of solar system gas giants like Jupiter might have formed.

    An illustration of a young planet with a surrounding disk of dust and gas potentially forming moons. The planet, which appears dark red, is shown at lower right, circled by a cloudy, clumpy reddish orange-colored disk. The host star appears at upper left, and glows yellow, with its own reddish disk of debris. The disk that surrounds the planet takes up about half the illustration. The black background of space is speckled with stars. At the bottom of the illustration, graphics of molecules are listed in the following order: diacetylene, hydrogen cyanide, propyne, acetylene, ethane, carbon dioxide, benzene. The words Artist’s Concept appear at upper right.

  2. NASA's Webb Explores Largest Star-Forming Cloud in Milky Way

    September 24, 2025Release ID: 2025-141 Missions: Webb

    The galactic center is packed with star-making material — why isn’t it producing more stars? Webb could reveal long-sought answers.

    A wide view of a region of space filled with stars and clumps of orange clouds.

  3. NASA’s Webb Observes Immense Stellar Jet on Outskirts of Our Milky Way

    September 10, 2025Release ID: 2025-131 Missions: Webb

    Young Star Behaves Like a Giant Roman Candle

    Gaseous yellow-orange filaments look like a rose seen from the side and tilted slightly from upper left to lower right, slightly higher than the center of the frame. Extending from the rose to upper left and lower right are gaseous outflows that appear as red lobes that have an overall shape of tall, narrow triangles with rounded tips. Each red triangle is made up of wavy, irregular lines. Dozens of stars are scattered across the field. One particularly bright white star with eight diffraction spikes is located at the top of the yellow rose. Another bright blue star with even more prominent diffraction spikes is to its lower left. The background of space is black.

  4. NASA Webb Looks at Earth-Sized, Habitable-Zone Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 e

    September 08, 2025Release ID: 2025-109 Missions: Webb

    While an original atmosphere is unlikely, scientists are narrowing possibilities for TRAPPIST-1 e’s secondary atmosphere, even as Webb observations of the exoplanet continue.

    Illustration of a star with multiple flares and four small orbiting planets. Star is at the center of the image, with a silhouetted planet to its lower right. A smaller planet is shown an inch to the left, also silhouetted. A third planet is directly to the left of the star, gray and white but without much detail, and farther out near the left edge of the image is the fourth planet, also gray with little detail.

  5. Glittering Glimpse of Star Birth From NASA's Webb Telescope

    September 04, 2025Release ID: 2025-136 Missions: Webb

    Nearby stellar nursery sheds light on massive star formation

    In what appears as a celestial dreamscape, a blue and black sky filled with brilliant stars covers about two thirds of the image. The stars are different sizes and shades of white, beige, yellow, and light orange. Across the bottom third of the scene is a craggy, mountain-like vista with spire-like peaks and deep, seemingly misty valleys. These so-called mountains appear in varying shades of orange, yellow, and brown. Above their soaring spires is a wispy, ethereal white cloud that stretched horizontally across the scene. Steam appears to rise from the mountaintops and join with this cloud. At the top right corner of the image, a swath of orange and brown structure cuts diagonally across the sky.

  6. Webb Narrows Atmospheric Possibilities for Earth-sized Exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 d

    August 13, 2025Release ID: 2025-120 Missions: Webb

    Could planets orbiting red dwarf stars like TRAPPIST-1 be habitable? Webb scientists say the investigation is ongoing.

    A planet is silhouetted in front of a star. The star shows a large eruption on one side and more wisps of red coming from its southern hemisphere. Two more planets appear in the background.

  7. NASA's Webb Finds New Evidence for Planet Around Closest Solar Twin

    August 07, 2025Release ID: 2025-135 Missions: Webb

    Data shows planet could be a gas giant, orbiting 1 to 2 times the distance between Sun and Earth.

    Three panels, each showing a different view of the binary star system Alpha Centauri. The panel at the left is a Digitized Sky Survey image showing a single bright point source at the center of a black image with small stars scattered throughout. The very center of this bright source is outlined with a vertical box, tilted slightly to the left, with two diagonal lines leading to the second panel. The Hubble Space Telescope image shows two white stars with 4 diffraction spikes each against a black background. The top star is labeled Alpha Cen B and the bottom Alpha Cen A. Alpha Cen A is outlined with a white square with two diagonal lines leading to the third panel at the furthest right, which shows a James Webb Space Telescope image of the star. Within a large white circle there is a blurry red-toned field with an orange star icon and central black circle outlined in white marking the location of Alpha Cen A. A bright orange blob at 9 o’clock in relation to the star is labeled “S1” and circled.

  8. NASA's Webb Traces Details of Complex Planetary Nebula

    July 30, 2025Release ID: 2025-124 Missions: Webb

    More than one star contributes to the irregular shape of NGC 6072.

    Colorful, mostly red glowing cloud with a distorted, asymmetrical shape that is illuminated from within by a bright central star. The asymmetrical shape resembles a large squished bug on the ground. In the center, a light blue glow appears over areas of dark pockets that look dark blue and are traced with orange material. It has a clumpy appearance. Shells of gas and dust appear as lobes stretching from roughly 11 to 5 o’clock, another from 1 to 7 o’clock, and possibly a third from 12 to 6 o’clock. The shells become a deeper red with distance from the center. These outflows push gas toward the equatorial plane, forming a disk that appears to span from 9 to 3 o’clock. The background of space is black and speckled with tiny bright stars and distant galaxies.

  9. NASA's Webb Scratches Beyond Surface of Cat's Paw for 3rd Anniversary

    July 10, 2025Release ID: 2025-129 Missions: Webb

    What lies within a toe bean? According to NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, mini toe beans composed of gas, dust, and stars.

    A section of the Cat’s Paw Nebula, a local star-forming region composed of gas, dust, and young stars. Four roughly circular areas are toward the center of the frame: a small oval toward the top left, a large circle in the top center, and two ovals at bottom left and right. Each circular area has a luminous blue glow, with the top center and bottom left areas the brightest. Brown-orange filaments of dust, which vary in density, surround these four bluish patches and stretch toward the frame’s edges. Small zones, such as to the left and right of the top-center blue circular area, appear darker and seemingly vacant of stars. Toward the center are small, fiery red clumps scattered among the brown dust. Many small, yellow-white stars are spread across the scene, some with eight-pointed diffraction spikes that are characteristic of Webb. A few larger blue-white stars with diffraction spikes are scattered throughout, mostly toward the top left and bottom right. In the top right corner is a bright red-orange oval.

  10. NASA Webb 'Pierces' Bullet Cluster, Refines Its Mass

    June 30, 2025Release ID: 2025-128 Missions: Webb

    Webb shows fainter and more distant galaxies, along with light from stars that trace dark matter in these galaxy clusters, helping researchers carefully map everything in the scene.

    Webb near-infrared data combined with Chandra X-ray data of the Bullet Cluster show many overlapping objects, including foreground stars, galaxies in galaxy clusters, and distorted background galaxies behind the galaxy clusters, set against the black background of space. A large blue oval, two pink areas, and a smaller blue area are layered on top.

  11. NASA's Webb Digs into Structural Origins of Disk Galaxies

    June 26, 2025Release ID: 2025-121 Missions: Webb

    Scientists “excavated” disk galaxies across cosmic time to understand their formation history.

    Two mosaics of edge-on disk galaxies observed by the James Webb Space Telescope. Each mosaic has eight images, split in two rows. The mosaic at the top is titled “thin and thick disk galaxies.” The mosaic at the bottom is titled “thick disk only galaxies.” Each disk galaxy is centered within a square frame and lies against the black background of space. They appear as thin lines with a slight bulge in their centers. A few of the galaxies are horizontal or vertical, but many are angled diagonally. The thin and thick disk galaxies are overall whiter and brighter compared to the thick disk only galaxies, which are fainter and brown-orange. Text in the bottom right of each box lists the galaxy’s redshift. From left to right, the first row of the top mosaic reads z =0.12; z = 0.25; z = 0.45; and z = 0.72. The second row reads z = 0.21; z = 0.38; z =0.65; and z = 0.73. The top row of the bottom mosaic reads z = 0.73, z = 0.94; z = 1.25; and z = 2.63. The bottom row reads z = 0.91; z = 1.03; z = 2.13; and z = 3.01.

  12. Likely Saturn-Mass Planet Imaged by NASA Webb Is Lightest Ever Seen

    June 25, 2025Release ID: 2025-126 Missions: Webb

    The newfound planet represents Webb’s first direct image discovery of a planet.

    An image of a nearby star and its vicinity. The star itself has been blocked out and its bright light has been removed, appearing black. A dashed circle with a star symbol at the center of the image marks the star’s location. A fuzzy blue disk surrounds the star. An orange spot, near the star and inside this disk around 2 o’clock, is identified as a planet orbiting the star. A fainter orange spot at the lower left edge marks a distant star.

  13. Frigid Exoplanet in Strange Orbit Imaged by NASA's Webb

    June 10, 2025Release ID: 2025-125 Missions: Webb

    First image ever taken of exoplanet in extremely mis-aligned system

    This image shows the exoplanet 14 Herculis c. The view is mostly black, with very faint red splotches in the central region of the image. At the center of the image, there is a black circle, and in the center of that, there is a star symbol representing a real star. This black circle blocks the light from the host star. To the lower right of the circle is a fuzzy bright orange circle, which is the exoplanet.

  14. NASA's Webb Rounds Out Picture of Sombrero Galaxy's Disk

    June 03, 2025Release ID: 2025-127 Missions: Webb

    Stellar light shines from iconic target in near-infrared

    Image of a galaxy on the black background of space. The galaxy is a very oblong, brownish yellowish disk that extends from left to right at an angle (from about 10 o’clock to 5 o’clock). Mottled dark brown patches rim the edge of the disk and are particularly prominent where they cross directly in front of the galaxy. The galaxy’s center glows white and extends above and below the disk. There are different colored dots, distant galaxies, speckled among the black background of space surrounding the galaxy. At the bottom right, there is a particularly bright foreground star with Webb’s signature diffraction spikes.

  15. Another First: NASA Webb Identifies Frozen Water in Young Star System

    May 14, 2025Release ID: 2025-119 Missions: Webb

    Researchers found water ice throughout a dusty debris disk circling the Sun-like star HD 181327.

    An illustration of Sun-like star HD 181327 and its surrounding debris disk.

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