Hubble’s latest view reveals a jewel-like cloudscape of gas and dust in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a dwarf galaxy about 160,000 light-years from Earth. This Milky Way companion is our galaxy’s largest satellite, and its active stellar nurseries glow in intricate pastel filaments. The wispy tendrils in the image have been likened to brightly colored “cotton candy” because of their pink, blue and green hues. Astronomers use scenes like this to probe star formation and dust. By tracing where dust hides newborn stars, Hubble’s sharp view reveals the structure of stellar nurseries in this nearby galaxy.

Galactic Cotton Candy: Nebula and Stars

According to NASA’s official site, this rich nebula was imaged with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) using five different filters, including ultraviolet and infrared bands. Each filter isolates a range of wavelengths, so the composite image highlights different components of the cloud. Bright regions mark hot young stars lighting up gas, while darker filaments are cooler dust clouds blocking light.

In effect, the image maps the interplay of stars and gas: astronomers see how massive stars sculpt the nebula, triggering new generations of star birth in the gas and dust. The vivid patterns of emission and absorption trace the LMC’s galactic structure, helping researchers study how its interstellar medium fuels star formation.

Beyond the Visible: Filters and False Color

Hubble’s technicians assigned colors to the filtered data to make the invisible visible. Visible-light filters use their natural hues, while ultraviolet light is shown as blue/violet and infrared as red. In this five-filter image, for example, ultraviolet-dominated spots and infrared-bright regions are translated into shades of blue, purple and red. This color scheme “closely represents reality while adding new information” from parts of the spectrum our eyes cannot see. In practice, it means the image remains scientifically faithful but emphasizes features that humans would otherwise miss.

The final result is both a tool and a portrait: astronomers gain insight into the composition and temperature of the gas and dust (for example, hydrogen-rich regions glowing pink), while the public enjoys a stunning, otherworldly view of a neighboring galaxy.

Astronomers have found a way to see through the turbulent atmosphere of a distant planet that experienced heat and gale-force winds — conditions that are thought to be similar to those on an early version of Earth that was also cold and blanketed by clouds. They accomplished it with the help of the NASA James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). WASP-121b orbits 900 light-years from Earth and circles its star once every 30 hours. That is why it has been shaped like a football and cooked to such a high degree; one side may become hotter than 3,000°C, which is hot enough to melt iron. This hellish world’s atmosphere has been analysed in unprecedented detail, revealing complex chemical signatures that hint at its violent origins and ongoing transformation.

JWST Detects Rare Molecules in WASP-121b’s Atmosphere, Revealing Planet’s Fiery Migration and Extreme Conditions

As per a recent report published by NASA, with JWST’s Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) instrument, scientists have been able to detect several molecules in the atmosphere of WASP-121b. A research study used a technique on a planetary atmosphere and found that silicon monoxide is the most important chemical. The research says that it developed early in the history of its star system, in a colder part of space, like Jupiter and Uranus in our solar system. This inward spiral, which was probably caused by gravity, cut off frozen material but let carbon-rich gas build up, which is what caused the present imbalance in the atmosphere.

The researchers used a three-dimensional model to depict how the temperature varies from the sunlit side to the night side of WASP-121b. They detected silicon monoxide, indicating that minerals were sponged up from the earliest asteroid impacts. It was hot, yes, but they detected methane on the nightside, a sign of vigorous up-and-down mixing that was pushing back toward the planet from cooler altitudes in the atmosphere. That flies in the face of everything we know about the atmospheres of other planets.

Observations of ultra-hot gas giants teach us about how atmospheres evolve, and JWST could share new insights. Then again, this could change the way we model and comprehend the formation of the planets around stars that aren’t so friendly.

It’s not what one would call a gentle planet, WASP-121b, a slapdash world. The observations made by JWST will be deeper, and scientists are eager to learn the variety of types of exoplanets out there in our galaxy.