As usual, we round off the year with a list of the most beautiful space photos. What are the most beautiful space photos for this year? More than 900 visitors chose the following ten photos.
It should come as no surprise that the list is dominated by images from the James Webb Telescope. This telescope opened its eyes earlier this year and has already sent many beautiful shots back to Earth. Only three photos in this top ten weren’t taken by James Webb…
We’re counting down from number 10 to number 1 in this article. The higher ranking images have received better ratings from visitors and are therefore higher on the list.
#10 You’ve Never Seen The Sun Like This: New Telescope Takes Stunning Photo Of The Chromosphere
Scientists released a stunning image of our parent star this year. The images were produced using the state-of-the-art Inouye Solar Telescope. And it really is a wonderful picture that reveals many secrets about our sun. “The telescope will forever change the way we study and understand our sun,” said National Science Foundation director Sethraman Panchanathan. Do you also think that the chromosphere of the sun is a bit like the hairy fur of an animal?
#9 James Webb sees the fledgling star as causing a lot of trouble
Last month, the US Space Agency released this beautiful image taken by the James Webb Telescope. The picture shows a colored hourglass. And right in the middle, in the “neck”, a newborn star lives. What is particularly remarkable is that the flaming orange and blue clouds can only be seen in infrared light. Therefore, they had never been seen before they were captured by the near-infrared webcam (Nircam). Read more about this photo in the story on Scientias.nl.
Protostar L1527 can be seen in the center of the colorful cosmic cloud. Material ejected from the star has created voids in the cloud, making the dust thicker and thinner in places (in orange and blue in this image). Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI. Image processing: J. DePasquale, A. Pagan, and A. Koekemoer (STScI)
#8 ESO Telescope Sees a Mighty Star Factory Looming in Space
In honor of the association’s 60th anniversary, the observatory released a remarkable image of the conical nebula this year. This is the star factory. It shines in the picture like never before. The nebula is less than 2,500 light-years away, which makes it relatively close to Earth. It is no coincidence that the conical nebula is a sought-after research object and has been photographed many times. However, the new image is more impressive than ever. Because you wouldn’t agree that the dark, impenetrable structure of the nebula in this image makes it look a lot like a monstrous creature?
In this image, taken with the FOcal Reducer and Spectrograph 2 (FORS2) on ESO’s VLT in Chile, hydrogen gas is shown in blue and sulfur gas in red. With these filters, the bright blue stars, which are a sign of recent star formation, appear almost golden and shine like sparks against the dark nebula. Photo: ESO
#7 One of James Webb’s first images: NGC 3132
2,000 light-years away from Earth, we find a planetary nebula, which is also called the Eight-Burst Nebula in English. The nebula (a growing cloud of gas around a dying star) is currently expanding at a rate of 14.5 kilometers per second. Webb gives astronomers a wealth of new information about the formation of planetary nebulae like NGC 3132. Of what particles For example, this giant gas cloud is built?
#6 James Webb Telescope Takes A Look At The Cartwheel Galaxy
You may have heard of the cartwheel system. A galaxy about 500 million light-years away from Earth. The galaxy is located in the constellation of the Sculptor and is particularly known for its somewhat odd shape. As the name suggests, the system looks like a wagon wheel; result of a massive collision. Earlier this year, researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope observed the Kartwell galaxy again. And the Which leads to some interesting ideas.
The Cartwheel Galaxy: A large, pink, speckled wheel-shaped galaxy. On the left, two small spiral galaxies of similar size stand out against a jet black background. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI
#5 The new Hubble image of spiral galaxy NGC 1961 is a sight to behold
It takes a while, but here’s the first Hubble image in the top 10. That’s it A stunning image of the spiral arms of NGC 1961. NGC 1961 is an active galactic nucleus or active galactic nucleus. AGNs are very active objects. They are powered by supermassive black holes. These black holes feed on large amounts of cosmic dust and gas. Before being swallowed up, this matter spirals into the black hole, releasing massive amounts of energy in the process. As a result, the active core often shines brighter than all the stars in the surrounding galaxy combined. In fact, they can even shine brighter than supernovae!
#4 Webb pairs up in a strange nursery and sees the previously unseen
One of the first images captured by the powerful James Webb telescope was of the stunning cosmic descents in the Carina Nebula. This is a region at the edge of a gas giant cavity in star cluster NGC 3324. The nebula is a well-known nursery, previously imaged by the Hubble Telescope. But thanks to Webb’s sharp infrared vision, this telescope is able to look through dense clouds of dust and gas for the first time. It has led To discover more subtleties about how stars see daylight.
#3 James Webb Takes Great Shots Of The Tarantula Nebula
Instruments aboard this powerful space telescope reveal never-before-seen details of this well-studied nebula. Including tens of thousands of previously unseen stars. With unprecedented resolution in the near-infrared wavelengths, NIRCam can still detect those stars, even though they are still hidden in the dust. On the photo, these stars are red in color. In addition, you can also see a lot of blue dots on the image. These represent the most active parts of the star-forming nebula, and are teeming with very young and massive stars.
The Tarantula Nebula through the eyes of NIRCam. Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Webb ERO Production Team.
#2 James Webb and Hubble collaborate and present a beautiful picture
Together, the James Webb and Hubble Space Telescopes produced a really beautiful picture. It’s an image of Messier 74, a spiral galaxy located about 32 million light-years away in the constellation of Pisces. New images of Messier 74 show the power of space observatories working together at multiple wavelengths. Look at the spiral galaxy Messier 74 Like you’ve never seen it before.
Composite image of Messier 74.
#1 An all-new photo of the world-famous Eagle Nebula has viewers freaking out
With an average rating of 9 (!!) is the Eagle Nebula Favorite space image of the year according to visitors to Scientias.nl. This nebula is located 6,500 light-years away and is of course known for its plumes of gas. These have been stealing the show for decades. If it is not on Scientias.nl, then on TV, in a movie (the introduction to “Contact”) or in a magazine. The picture became world famous in a short time. And this is not surprising: the Eagle Nebula, with its dusty pillars, is beautiful.
Incidentally, James Webb took another image of the Eagle Nebula earlier this year, which you can view here.
Click on the image to view a larger version.
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