The U.S. Postal Service has issued two new stamps featuring iconic images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The stamps, issued Jan. 21, highlight a galaxy and a star cluster captured by Webb’s powerful infrared view of the universe. Webb is a mission led by NASA in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
“The James Webb Space Telescope transforms science into art as it continues to capture extraordinary snapshots of deep space brimming with incredible scientific data to be studied for decades to come,” said Nicky Fox, associate administrator, Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “NASA Science is literally everywhere, and it continues to deliver for the American people so that everyone can have the opportunity to hold a piece of space in their hands with these breathtaking images beyond our solar system. I am excited that not only my favorite image, the spiral galaxy NGC 628, is featured this year, but that both stamps are taking us on an incredible journey into our cosmic history from one mailbox to another.”
Webb, which launched in December 2021, continues to deliver highly detailed scenes of nearby galaxies, contributing new puzzle pieces to our understanding of how stars form and galaxies evolve. One of the new stamps, a Priority Mail stamp, showcases Webb’s image of a spiral galaxy called NGC 628. Webb’s observations combine near- and mid-infrared light to reveal glowing gas and dust in stark shades of orange and red, as well as finer spiral shapes with the appearance of jagged edges. This galaxy is located 32 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces.
The other new stamp, a Priority Mail Express stamp, features Webb’s image of the central portion of the star cluster IC 348 in near-infrared light. The wispy curtains filling the image are interstellar material reflecting the light from the cluster’s stars – what is known as a reflection nebula. This scene is located 1,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Perseus.
The U.S. Postal Service stamps honor Webb’s achievements as it continues its mission to explore the unknown in our universe and study every phase in cosmic history. Webb has already pulled back the curtain on some of the farthest galaxies, stars, and black holes ever observed; addressed mysteries about the early universe; given us a more detailed look at the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system than ever before; and offered new views and insights into our own cosmic backyard. The new U.S. Postal Service stamps join previous stamps issued to celebrate Webb in 2022 and 2024.
To learn more about Webb, visit:
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The James Webb Space Telescope is the world’s premier infrared space science observatory. Webb is solving mysteries in our solar system, looking beyond to distant worlds around other stars, and probing the mysterious structures and origins of our universe and our place in it. Webb is an international program led by NASA with its partners, ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency).
NASA Headquarters oversees the mission for the agency’s Science Mission Directorate. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, manages Webb for the agency and oversees work on the mission performed by the Space Telescope Science Institute, Northrop Grumman, and other mission partners. In addition to Goddard, several NASA centers contributed to the project, including the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston; Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California; Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama; Ames Research Center in California’s Silicon Valley; and others.
