Imagine seeing the universe in a whole new light. That’s what four amazing new images let you do. They combine data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and James Webb Space Telescope, two of the most advanced telescopes ever built. Chandra can detect X-rays, a form of high-energy light that reveals the hottest and most violent phenomena in space, while Webb captures infrared light, a form of low-energy light that shows the coolest and most hidden objects in the cosmos.
The above stunning images are produced by mixing Chandra’s X-rays with Webb’s infrared light. They include:
- the star cluster NGC 346 (in the galaxy known as the Small Magellanic Cloud)
- the galaxy NGC 1672 (about 60 million light-years from Earth)
- M74, a spiral galaxy similarly shaped to our Milky Way
- M16 or the Eagle Nebula, a previously photographed region of space popularly known as the "Pillars of Creation"
Intriguingly, these composite images also use data from other telescopes, such as NASA's Hubble and Spitzer, ESA's XMM-Newton, and ESO's New Technology Telescope. By using different kinds of light, we can discover more details and wonders that our eyes alone could never see. Further info here.
Image credits: X-ray: Chandra: NASA/CXC/SAO, XMM: ESA/XMM-Newton; IR: JWST: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI, Spitzer: NASA/JPL/CalTech; Optical: Hubble: NASA/ESA/STScI, ESO; Image Processing: L. Frattare, J. Major, and K. Arcand