Folk Culture

A Beacon in the Clouds

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3 days ago Rene Solomon

A bright young star within a colorful cloud-like nebula. The star is the brightest spot, dominating the right side of the image, surrounded by six large spokes of light that cross the image. — ESA / Webb, NASA & CSA, O. Nayak, M. Meixner

Day 19 of the 2024 Space Telescope Advent Calendar: a beacon in the clouds. This image from the James Webb Space Telescope features a bright H II region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. This nebula, known as N79, is a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionized, seen here by Webb’s Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI). N79 is a massive star-forming complex spanning roughly 1,630 light-years across. This particular image focuses on one of the three giant molecular cloud complexes, dubbed N79 South.

See the full advent calendar here, where a new image will be revealed each day until December 25.