Daedalus

ALT A group of five galaxies that appear close to each other in the sky: two in the middle, one toward the top, one to the upper left, and one toward the bottom. Four of the five appear to be touching. One is somewhat separated. In the image, the galaxies are large relative to the hundreds of much smaller (more distant) galaxies in the background. All five galaxies have bright white cores. Each has a slightly different size, shape, structure, and coloring. Scattered across the image, in front of the galaxies are number of foreground stars with diffraction spikes: bright white points, each with eight bright lines radiating out from the center.

ALT A large, face-on spiral galaxy on a black background. The core is radiating very brightly. Swirling streaks of dust glow an orange-pink in the center and across most of the galaxy. This gas is surrounded by a dark gray halo made of the galaxy’s stars. The halo stretches out into a tidal tail (a long tendril of dust and stars) at the upper-left, and another at the bottom right. Dozens of small, distant stars and galaxies surround the main spiral galaxy.

ALT Together, two merging galaxies form a bean-like shape just below the center of this image. The cores of the galaxies are colored blue, and one is above and to the left of the other. These two cores are surrounded by bright tendrils of coral star-forming regions, which stretch above and below. To the right of the top galactic core is a particularly bright star-formation clump with faint diffraction spikes. The lower galaxy is a mostly regular spiral shape, while the upper galaxy has been distorted into a much more condensed bun. There is also a semi-transparent arc of pale dust above both merging galaxies. The background is black, and many tiny distant galaxies dot the scene.

ALT A black, deep space image is dominated by a large central object. This object resembles a snowflake-like feature with a bright white core and 8 pinkish orange spikes. It is surrounded by additional wisps of pinkish orange and blue gas. In reality, this “snowflake” is actually two colliding galaxies with merging cores. The brilliant light from the star formation surrounding these cores creates diffraction spikes, an optical effect that occurs when bright light interacts with a telescope’s optics. The background is punctuated with scattered red, white and orange galaxies of various shapes and sizes.

ALT Webb's mid-infrared view of galaxy M51. A large spiral galaxy takes up the entirety of the image. The core is mostly bright white, but there are also swirling, detailed structures that resemble water circling a drain. There is white and pale blue light that emanates from stars and dust at the core’s center, but it is tightly limited to the core. The detailed rings feature bands of deep orange and cloudy gray, which are interspersed by darker empty regions throughout.