From black holes to the oldest light in the universe, we saw an unusual universe in 2022.
Above: False color image of Jupiter from the Webb Space Telescope.
If you've ever looked up at the night sky and seen a dazzling array of stars, you've been in awe: a rare moment of confusion. The scale of the universe and the vast diversity of objects in it are always astonishing.
This year we saw some newfound resolution and vibrancy in objects. State-of-the-art technology, especially the recently launched Webb Space Telescope, has revolutionized our view of the universe, allowing scientists to peer deeper into the universe's faintest light.
Here are some of the space images that will capture our attention in 2022.
A striking protostellar hourglass
Above: A protostar in the dark cloud of L1527.
In this stunning image, light bursts out in an hourglass shape from the dark clouds of L1527, about 460 light-years from Earth. The Webb telescope team released this image in November. The hourglass-shaped core (hidden by a thin horizontal line) is a protostar.
Southern Ring Nebula
Above: Two different views of the Southern Ring Nebula.
These two images of the Southern Ring Nebula, taken by the Webb Telescope, reveal different aspects of the same structure. The nebula is approximately 2,500 years old, and scientists recently studied Webb's data to create these two images and decipher the circumstances that may have caused this colorful space oval.
Pillars of Creation (Photo again!)
Above: Pillars of Creation photographed by Hubble (left) and Webb (right).
Webb captured a new view of the Pillars of Creation (right), the tendrils of gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula. The picture on the left is a famous photo taken by the Hubble Space Telescope in the 1990s. Webb's images reveal never-before-seen details of pillar star formation.
Sagittarius A *
Above: The black hole at the center of the Milky Way. The Event Horizon Collaboration this year produced an image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way, a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*. The bright ring around this black hole with a mass of 4 million suns is superheated material.
Two very old galaxies
Above: Galaxies that existed 450 million and 350 million years after the Big Bang.
Two galaxies discovered in deep space by the Webb Telescope are unusually old. Highlighted in the image above, galaxies 1 and 2 have redshifts of 10.5 and 12.5 respectively, suggesting that they occurred a few hundred million years after the Big Bang (now nearly 14 billion years after the formation of the universe).
A closer look at Europa
Above: Juno’s most recent view of Europa.
In September of this year, NASA's Juno spacecraft captured this image of Jupiter's satellite Europa. The probe is located approximately 219 miles from the moon's surface, providing one of the most intimate observations we have yet of this mysterious planet.
The Sun's South Pole
Above: The Sun's South Pole as seen from Solar Orbiter.
While the Sun's properties are well known (it's an extremely hot sphere of gas), NASA and the European Space Agency's Solar Orbiter have given us the best views of the star ever. The orbiter has even entered the sun's corona, making it the only man-made object to actually touch the star. This photo of the Sun's South Pole makes our own star so familiar - I almost want to touch it now.
Neptune 's rings are in sharp relief
Above: Neptune and its rings as captured by Webb's NIRCam.
Weber captured an image of the deep blue world Neptune in September.Yes, this is a picture of Neptune, not Saturn, which is the most typical Saturn rings. Neptune also has rings, distinct reliefs visible in this infrared photo.
Stephen's Quintet
Above: Five galaxies in an image composed of more than 150 million pixels.
Stephen's Quintet is a group of five galaxies that appear very close to each other in the sky. These galaxies are actually very far away from each other, but our observations of them make them look like a busy dance floor, with galaxies swirling around each other in a crowded frame. Weber's picture is a composite image with a total of more than 150 million pixels.
Overlapping galaxies
Above: Overlapping galaxies as seen by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Hubble captured these two spiral galaxies more than 1 billion light-years away from Earth, giving the illusion that they are colliding. They just visually overlap, making the space look more crowded than it actually is.
The Tarantula Nebula
Above: The Tarantula Nebula as seen by Webb.
The Tarantula Nebula is a gossamer of young newborn stars. Its name comes from its resemblance to a tarantula's burrow. It is the largest stellar nursery in the local universe (approximately 161,000 light-years away). You guessed it, this was also taken by the Webb Space Telescope in early September.
Ghost Galaxies
Above: Data from the Hubble and Webb Space Telescopes of ghost galaxies.
This image of a ghost galaxy was taken at optical and mid-infrared wavelengths. This image was taken using data from the Webb and Hubble telescopes. The galaxy is about 32 million light-years away from Earth and is characterized by gas clouds , dust clouds, and star-forming regions.
The Illusion of Jupiter
Above: Jupiter in false color as observed by Webb.
You've never seen Jupiter as Webb recently photographed: Instead of the traditional opalescent marble, the solar system's largest planet is iridescent blue. If you squint, you can also see Jupiter's rings.
wheel galaxy
Above: wheel galaxy as seen by Weber.
This photo looks like someone was asked to paint space with watercolors. Webb saw the Cartwheel Galaxy (you can see why it's called that) among a series of other light sources, mostly galaxies in the distant universe.
Webb's first deep space field
Above: SMACS 0723, Webb's first deep space image.
Webb's first deep-field image captures a galaxy cluster called SMACS 0723, which magnifies more distant light sources in the early universe due to gravitational lensing. Webb will continue to take advantage of gravitational lensing to observe the oldest light in the universe.
The Carina Nebula The cosmic cliff
Above: The Carina Nebula as seen by Webb.
The Webb Space Telescope captured the edge of the Carina Nebula. This massive structure is called the Cosmic Cliff, and this is the infrared image. There are many star nurseries inside the cliffs, and other light sources can be seen in the distance - stars and galaxies in the distant universe.
Merging galaxies observed by two telescopes
Above: The distant galaxy merger IC 1623 photographed by Webb (left) and Hubble (right).
These two galaxies are in the process of merging. According to the European Space Agency, "Their collision triggered a frenzied wave of star formation known as a starburst, creating new stars at a rate 20 times faster than that of the Milky Way."
Volcanic activity on Io
Above: Io as seen by the Jupiter Infrared Auroral Imager.
Jupiter's moon Io is dotted with bright spots in this photo taken by NASA's Jupiter Infrared Auroral Mapper. These bright spots are volcanic hotspots on the moon, and they fuel the aurora above Jupiter.
Milky Way Lines
Above: A multicolor image shows the long vertical magnetic filament streaks in the Milky Way's core.
Mosaic images taken by the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa show that there are nearly 1,000 cosmic ray particle chains in the center of the Milky Way that are several light years long. Such chains were discovered decades ago, but researchers didn't know there were so many.
The oldest known star
Above: Earendel ( Earendel), thanks to gravitational lensing. The bright red dot at the end of the arrow in the
picture is the 13 billion-year-old star Earendel that astronomers discovered this year. It is the oldest known star ever observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. It was discovered thanks to the gravitational lensing effect, which would go on to reveal the earliest light in the universe.
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