This image is from Webb’s NIRCam instrument, which saw this nebula in the near-infrared.
A crowded field of galaxies is interspersed with bright 8-pointed stars on a dark background. The galaxies and stars come in a variety of sizes and colors, ranging from bluish white to orange. Some galaxies are large enough to make out spiral arms, while others look like faint smudges or pinpricks. The most prominent feature is a large, detailed spiral galaxy called LEDA 2046648, seen at an oblique angle towards the bottom of the frame. A smaller spiral galaxy is just below it. About one-quarter the size of its larger companion, this small galaxy looks like a miniature version of LEDA 2046648. Both of these spiral galaxies have glowing cores and areas of star formation lighting up their pale pink arms.

What is Webb Observing?

See current, upcoming and recent past observations scientists are making with the Webb Space Telescope. Use the "Observation Details + " button (right side of the window) to view each observation's science focus areas, instruments used and more. Note that the sky map showing the target’s location uses imagery from ground-based telescopes, not imagery from the Webb Space Telescope.

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Star LIfecycle

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Galaxies Over TIme

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Other Worlds

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Early Universe

Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, and CDS

Explore More: Recent Webb Articles

Astronomers Find Early Fast-Feeding Black Hole Using NASA Telescopes

The top-left half of the image is a Hubble Space Telescope view of a 100-billion-mile-wide disk of dust around the summer star Vega. The disk is represented in blue. The color trails to white as we get closer to the center of the disk. The black spot at the center blocks out the bright glow of the hot young star. The disk is perfectly circular because we are looking down on top of it. The lower-right half of the image is a view from the James Webb Space Telescope, which reveals the glow of warm dust in the disk's halo that is colored orange. The disk is brighter toward the center. There is a notable dip in surface brightness between the inner and outer disk.

NASA’s Hubble, Webb Probe Surprisingly Smooth Disk Around Vega

Two spiral galaxies take the shape of a colorful beaded mask that sits above the nose. The galaxy at left, IC 2163, is smaller, taking up a little over a quarter of the view. The galaxy at right, NGC 2207, takes up half the view, with its spiral arms reaching the edges. IC 2163 has a bright orange core, with two prominent spiral arms that rotate counter clockwise and become straighter towards the ends, the left side extending almost to the edge. Its arms are a mix of pink, white, and blue, with an area that takes the shape of an eyelid appearing whitest. NGC 2207 has a very bright core. Overall, it appears to have larger, thicker spiral arms that spin counter clockwise. This galaxy also contains more and larger blue areas of star formation that poke out like holes from the pink spiral arms. In the middle, the galaxies’ arms appear to overlap. The edges show the black background of space, including extremely distant galaxies that look like orange and red smudges, and a few foreground stars.

‘Blood-Soaked’ Eyes: NASA’s Webb, Hubble Examine Galaxy Pair

Artist’s concept of Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 as seen from the side against a dark, mostly starless swath of space. The rocky, bilobed nucleus is toward the right and resembles the simplified shape of a peanut. The left side of the centaur is partially illuminated by the Sun, which is off-screen, revealing the nucleus’ light brown surface. Four jets of gas, depicted as translucent cones of white, emanate from various points on the Centaur’s surface and extend beyond the frame: two emanate upward from the top, one jet spews from the bottom and extends downward, and one jet emanates from the left side of the nucleus and extends toward the left. A label in the bottom left corner reads “Artist’s Concept.”

NASA’s Webb Reveals Unusual Jets of Volatile Gas from Icy Centaur 29P

A black background sprinkled with small, colorful galaxies in orange, blue, and white. On the left, a third of the way down from the top of the image, a very faint dot of a galaxy is outlined with a white square and pulled out in a graphic to be shown magnified. In the pullout square to the right, the galaxy is a hazy white dot edged in orange, with faint blue projections opposite each other at the 11 o’clock and 5 o’clock positions.

In Odd Galaxy, NASA’s Webb Finds Potential Missing Link to First Stars

A pair of interacting galaxies. The larger of the two galaxies is slightly right of center, and composed of a hazy, bright, white center and a ring of gaseous filaments, which are different shades of red and orange. Toward the bottom left and bottom right of the ring are filaments of gas spiraling inward toward the core. At the top left of the ring is a noticeable gap, bordered by two large, orange pockets of dust and gas. The smaller galaxy to its left is made of hazy white gas and dust, which becomes more diffuse farther away from its center. To this galaxy’s bottom left, there is a smaller, more diffuse gas cloud that wafts outward toward the edges. Many red, orange, and white galaxies are spread throughout, with some hazier in composition and others having more defined spiral patterns.

NASA’s Webb Provides Another Look Into Galactic Collisions