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Paul Byrne
@theplanetaryguy.com

This is a SMALL version of the largest JWST image released so far—of IC 348, a star-forming region about 1,000 lightyears away. Open up the image and marvel in the incredible beauty even in our galactic neighbourhood. This is what it looks like when stars are born.

Paul Byrne
@theplanetaryguy.com

This image is 4,000 × 3,232 pixels; the original is 30,866 × 38,204 px. It's ABSURDLY huge. In this scene, stars are bright, multi-pointed features. There are also some objects called Herbig-Haro objects (upper right), where protostars eject powerful jets that ram into and heat up gas and dust.

1 repost37 likes

Paul Byrne
@theplanetaryguy.com

The yellow–green–brown feature is a veil of dust and gas from which the stars condense; bluer dust is at the upper right. The total field of is about 16 × 20 arcminutes. See the original figure here: esawebb.org/images/weic2... Credit: ESA/Webb/NASA/CSA/K. Luhman/C. Alves De Oliveira/M. Zamani

Paul Byrne
@theplanetaryguy.com

Like, this is an area about TWO PERCENT of the total scene. By my count, there's around 10 stars local to the Milky Way in this view. EVERYTHING ELSE IS A GALAXY

isstvansurvivor.bsky.social
@isstvansurvivor.bsky.social

These images always leave me in awe. What's the estimate of mean stars per galaxy these days? The number I remember is 200 billion. Do you know if that's been updated lately? Keep these pics coming mate, they always make my day.