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Put a ring on it -

The first image that is definitely worth bringing to everyone's attention is this glorious high-definition picture captured of the planet Uranus, featuring its 13 brilliant and vibrant rings.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Galactic gathering -

It certainly took a lot of processing time for this image of the night sky to be captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. Hundreds of galaxies swirl in a dance overhead, and our man-made machinery is only a spectator.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Floating along -

Pictured here is a free-floating brown dwarf, which is basically an astronomical object that is neither a star nor a planet, but something in between. This brown dwarf in particular is vibrantly beautiful and has created a cosmic gas cloud that extends well into the depths of space.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Colorful cloud -

When newborn stars come into existence, they emit bright and colorful nebula that are known as Herbig-Haro objects. These nebula are essentially created because of the reaction that gas has with dust in space.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Combined effort -

In an effort to capture the light of thousands of galaxies swirling through space, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope pooled their combined resources to obtain this colorful view of the universe.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Purple rain -

As the James Webb Space Telescope looked up at the night sky in early 2024, it captured this beautiful purple composition of light and dark. Looking closely, you can see the bright flare of what looks like a star close to the center of the image. This is actually a black hole!

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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A distant view -

In astronomy, distance is measured not in miles or kilometers but rather in how far light travels in one Earth year. This is known as a "light-year," and the distance is equal to about 5.88 trillion miles (9.46 trillion kilometers). The picture you see here is of a group of stars in the southern constellation of Tucana. They are 210,000 light-years away.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Dusty ribbons -

In the same group of stars, astronomers were able to capture this image from a different angle. Scientists have commented on the appearance of these cosmic bodies and have claimed that they appear to be speckles of light floating between ribbons of dust.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Mosaic of beauty -

The Orion constellation is certainly a beauty to behold in any circumstance, but the James Webb Space Telescope is truly able to capture its beauty and splendor in a mosaic of light.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Swirling stars -

Located approximately 23.5 million light-years away, the Whirlpool Galaxy is truly one of the most glorious astronomical objects that could possibly grace the night sky.  Despite its distance, it is so bright that it can be viewed using regular binoculars.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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The Crab Nebula -

Compared to the other cosmic objects on this list, the Crab Nebula is tremendously close, sitting at a meager 6,500 light-years from Earth. The nebula is actually located in the constellation Taurus.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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A beautiful end -

The James Webb Space Telescope was able to capture the intricate details in the remains of a dying star. As a star burns away the last reserves of its fuel, it explodes and turns into a nebula that ultimately collapses and becomes a black hole.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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New beginning -

But aside from the light of dying stars, the universe is also full of color from stars that are only just becoming whole. Here you can see a close-up of one such star, which is similar to our very own Sun.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Fiery birth -

Stars are created by the sheer mass of gravity that concentrates in a singular place and pulls burning fuel together. Pictured here is the gathering of gas as it slowly begins to form a new star.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Explosion in the universe -

What you see here is a high-definition image of a nebula that was created from the death and explosion of a star.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Graveyard -

The universe is littered with dead or dying stars, each colorful and vibrant in their own ways. Here are the remains of one such star, its debris and essence scattered into a nebula that spreads across the cosmos.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Pillars of Creation -

About 7,000 light-years from Earth, the interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula has created an incredibly beautiful piece of art known as the Pillars of Creation. This image was captured by combining resources from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Spiraling -

The Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope teamed up again in early 2024 to capture these arresting views of NGC 1672, a galaxy located about 51.7 million light-years away.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Color and answers -

This image of NGC 346, also captured by Webb and Chandra, provided many answers to astronomers working in the field of star clusters and development. For others, however, it sure does look beautiful!

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Explosive -

This rarely-seen image captures the moments leading up to the explosion and supernova of a dying star.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Bright future -

Pictured here is the rare beauty of a star formation, as gases and color swirl through the cosmos and condense into a single region of space. Over the next few million years, these dust ribbons will band together and shine brighter light into the universe.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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A composite in purple -

Purple seems to be beloved in the universe, but this picture is impressive for more than just the color. The image is of multiple galaxies clustered together (known as MACS J0416) and was captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, the Hubble Space Telescope, and the Chandra X-ray Observatory.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Gas release -

In the top left of this picture, you can see bright red, clumpy streaks slanted in the same direction and almost at the same degree. They are known as "protostellar outflows," which are essentially jets of gas emitted from newborn stars.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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A shocking contrast -

This incredible image was combined after the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope captured separate images of the spiral galaxy NGC 1512, 38 million light-years away. The image is split diagonally: the James Webb picture at top left, and the Hubble picture on bottom right.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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A dying supernova -

NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope were again combined to study the remains of the well-known supernova Cassiopeia A. The light from the explosion first reached Earth in the 1690s, but since the supernova is 11,000 light-years away this means that the explosion actually occurred more than 11 millennia ago.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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Southern Ring Nebula -

The Southern Ring Nebula (more formally known as NGC 3132) was one of five cosmic objects chosen to be studied as part of the James Webb Space Telescope's maiden pictures. The nebula is an estimated 2,000 light-years from Earth, and the center has most likely reached a temperature of 180,000°F (100,000°C).

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Cosmic Cliffs -

The Carina Nebula, floating through the cosmos about 8,500 light-years away, truly brings beauty to the universe with its assemblage of gas and dust. This particular image is known as the Cosmic Cliffs, and for good reason.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

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A close neighbor -

Pictured here is the beautiful browns and whites of the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy that is around 163,000 light-years away. This distance makes it one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way.

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Tarantula Nebula -

Despite the fact that the Tarantula Nebula sits about 160,000 light-years from Earth, it is still incredibly luminous. In fact, if it were as close as the Orion Nebula is to our planet, then the Tarantula Nebula would cast visible shadows on Earth.

Image credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Sources: (NASA) (Britannica)

See also: Time-lapse of the future—what the universe will look like

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