ALT An image taken from the Saturnian system shows the ringed planet in the foreground and in the dark blue space Earth is a bright dot just below the beautiful rings.

ALT An illustration shows a jet black planet barely visible in the dark of space. There is a slight reddish glow of red emanating from deep within.

ALT An array of six exoplanets are shown in illustrations in a gallery of Kepler-16b, Kepler-22b, Kepler-7b, Kepler-452b, KELT-9b, and WASP-12b. WASP-12b is egg shaped, while the other planets are round and various colors, like orange, green, brown and cloudy Jupiter.

ALT An image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows dark nebula looking like a flame rising through the center of the image against a turquoise and blue glowing nebula, stars dotted throughout The Flame Nebula, also called NGC 2024, is a large star-forming region in the constellation Orion that lies about 1,400 light-years from Earth. It’s a portion of the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, which includes such famous nebulae as the Horsehead Nebula and Orion Nebula. This image focuses on the dark, dusty heart of the nebula, where a star cluster resides, mostly hidden from view. Nearby (but not visible in this image) is the bright star Alnitak, the easternmost star in the Belt of Orion. Radiation from Alnitak ionizes the Flame Nebula’s hydrogen gas. As the gas begins to cool from its higher-energy state to a lower-energy state, it emits energy in the form of light, causing the visible glow behind the swirled wisps of dust.

ALT TRAPPIST-1 Twitter Spaces tomorrow. Tuesday, February 22 at 2pm ET and 11am PT. The words appear on an illustration of colorful exoplanets.

ALT An illustration showing many different types of exoplanets discovered so far, from giant to much smaller.

ALT NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has produced the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date. Known as Webb’s First Deep Field, this image of galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 is overflowing with detail. Thousands of galaxies – including the faintest objects ever observed in the infrared – have appeared in Webb’s view for the first time. This slice of the vast universe covers a patch of sky approximately the size of a grain of sand held at arm’s length by someone on the ground. This deep field, taken by Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a composite made from images at different wavelengths, totaling 12.5 hours – achieving depths at infrared wavelengths beyond the Hubble Space Telescope’s deepest fields, which took weeks. The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago. The combined mass of this galaxy cluster acts as a gravitational lens, magnifying much more distant galaxies behind it. Webb’s NIRCam has brought those dista

ALT The corner of Saturn and its beautiful rings are pictured with a tiny bright dot just below the rings in the dark of space. The dot is Earth.

ALT This schematic shows the configuration of the sextuple star system TYC 7037-89-1. The inner quadruple is composed of two binaries, A and C, which orbit each other every four years or so. An outer binary, B, orbits the quadruple roughly every 2,000 years. All three pairs are eclipsing binaries.

ALT This Hubble infrared image captures a protostar designated J1672835.29-763111.64 in the reflection nebula IC 2631, part of the Chamaeleon star-forming region in the southern constellation Chamaeleon. Protostars shine with the heat energy released by clouds contracting around them and the accumulation of material from the nearby gas and dust.

ALT An image of the Eagle Nebula, also called M16, and often referred to as the "Pillars of Creation". Here, tall columns of gray gas and dust emerge from the bottom edge of the image, stretching toward our upper right. Backed by dark orange mist, the cloudy gray columns are surrounded by dozens of soft, glowing, pink and purple dots; massive stars emitting enormous amounts of X-rays. The shapes, hints of movement, and colors in this composite rendering create a dream-like image. The misty orange background suggests a dusky sky, and the glowing pink and purple stars resemble fireflies. Churning with turbulent gas and dust, the columns lean to our right with small offshoots pointing in the same direction. These details evoke an image of yearning cloud creatures at dusk, pointing at something just out of frame.

ALT Newborn stars, hidden behind thick dust, are revealed in this image of a section of the so-called Christmas Tree Cluster from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The newly revealed infant stars appear as pink and red specks toward the center and appear to have formed in regularly spaced intervals along linear structures in a configuration that resembles the spokes of a wheel or the pattern of a snowflake. Hence, astronomers have nicknamed this the "Snowflake Cluster." Star-forming clouds like this one are dynamic and evolving structures. Since the stars trace the straight line pattern of spokes of a wheel, scientists believe that these are newborn stars, or "protostars." At a mere 100,000 years old, these infant structures have yet to "crawl" away from their location of birth. Over time, the natural drifting motions of each star will break this order, and the snowflake design will be no more.

ALT Exoplanet census showing 5 planets in 1995

ALT Exoplanet census showing 4292 planets now

ALT A planet covered with volcanic outbursts and spots of water takes up most of the left-hand foreground. In the distance, against the black background, is a faint blue planet. LP 791-18 d, shown here in an artist's concept, is an Earth-size world about 90 light-years away. The gravitational tug from a more massive planet in the system, shown as a blue disk in the background, may result in internal heating and volcanic eruptions – as much as Jupiter’s moon Io, the most geologically active body in the solar system. Astronomers discovered and studied the planet using data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) along with many other observatories. Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Chris Smith (KRBwyle)

ALT Star cluster NGC 346 appears as a glittery gold and purple splash of color against a black, star-sprinkled backdrop. Shaped a bit like a dove, the cluster is translucent lavender and lilac, with gold and white edges. NGC 346, shown here in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a dynamic star cluster that lies within a nebula 200,000 light years away. Webb reveals the presence of many more building blocks than previously expected, not only for stars, but also planets, in the form of clouds packed with dust and hydrogen. The plumes and arcs of gas in this image contains two types of hydrogen. The pink gas represents energized hydrogen, which is typically as hot as around 10,000 °C.

ALT In this Webb image, Neptune resembles a pearl with rings that look like ethereal concentric ovals around it. There are 2 thinner, crisper rings and 2 broader, fainter rings. A few extremely bright patches on the lower half of Neptune represent methane ice clouds. Six tiny white dots, which are six of Neptune’s 14 moons, are scattered among the rings. The background of the image is black.

ALT In this Webb image, Neptune resembles a pearl with rings that look like ethereal concentric ovals around it. There are 2 thinner, crisper rings and 2 broader, fainter rings. A few extremely bright patches on the lower half of Neptune represent methane ice clouds. Six tiny white dots, which are six of Neptune’s 14 moons, are scattered among the rings. The background of the image is black.

ALT A travel poster for the exoplanet 55 Cancri e. This bright, colorful poster is done in pinks, purples and orange hues. Two people are seen floating in a giant bubble behind a craft zooming across an ocean of hot lava. The purplish sky is filled with thick clouds of darker purples and grays with sparkles shining throughout. A planet appears in the sky like a crescent moon. The poster says, ‘’Lava life: Skies sparkle above a neverending ocean of lava.’’

ALT A vintage looking travel poster shows a human figure from behind, standing beneath two big and bright suns. The smaller one of the pair is bright orange and the larger one is yellowish white. The person is casting two shadows because of the two stars. The person is looking toward rock formations that look like those found in the Southwest US. The poster is done in red, orange and white colors and says, ‘’Relax on Kepler-16b, where your shadow always has company.’’

ALT A travel poster for the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1e. A woman and children are gathered around a train window looking out excitedly. Through the window you can see six large exoplanets in the sky like giant moons. The inside of the train car is dark to better show the view outside, where everything is bathed in the red light from its red dwarf star. The sky is also filled with stars including the three-star line of Orion and the Leo constellation, which contains our yellow sun as a star. The poster says, ‘’Planet hop to TRAPPIST-1e, voted number1 habitable zone vacation spot.’’

ALT Newborn stars peek out from beneath their natal blanket of dust in this dynamic image of the Rho Ophiuchi dark cloud called "Rho Oph" by astronomers, it's one of the closest star-forming regions to our own solar system. Located near the constellations Scorpius and Ophiuchus, the nebula is about 407 light years away from Earth.

ALT Deep field observations are long-lasting observations of a particular region of the sky intended to reveal faint objects by collecting the light from them for an appropriately long time. The 'deeper' the observation is (i.e. longer exposure time), the fainter are the objects that become visible on the images. Astronomical objects can either look faint because their natural brightness is low, or because of their dista

ALT The center of our Milky Way galaxy is hidden from the prying eyes of optical telescopes by clouds of obscuring dust and gas. But in this stunning vista, the Spitzer Space Telescope's infrared cameras penetrate much of the dust, revealing the stars of the crowded galactic center region.

ALT Located about 700 light-years from Earth, the eye-like Helix nebula is a planetary nebula, or the remains of a Sun-like star. When these stars run out of their internal fuel supply, their outer layers puff up to create the nebula. The nebula is heated by the hot core of the dead star, called a white dwarf, which is not visible in this image but is located in the middle of the "eye." Our Sun will blossom into a planet

ALT NGC 7469, a face-on galaxy, with gray spiral arms, sprinkled with bright red patches of star formation. The James Webb Space Telescope spied the spiral galaxy NGC 7469, located 220 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus, in this image released on Dec. 21, 2022. This galaxy is very dusty, but Webb’s infrared vision can peer through to observe features like the intense ring of star formation close around its bright center. Image Credit: ESA/Webb, NASA & CSA, L. Armus, A. S. Evans

ALT An illustration shows a brownish, rocky exoplanet just right of center. Bright clouds can be seen at the right of the planet, indicating that they could be present on the side of the planet not facing the unseen star. Newly discovered Earth-size planet TOI 700 e orbits within the habitable zone of its star in this illustration. Its Earth-size sibling, TOI 700 d, can be seen in the distance in dark, star-filled space. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Robert Hurt

ALT This image shows the most massive planet-hosting star pair to date, b Centauri, and its giant planet b Centauri b. This is the first time astronomers have directly observed a planet orbiting a star pair this massive and hot. The star pair, which has a total mass of at least six times that of the Sun, is the bright object in the top left corner of the image, the bright and dark rings around it being optical artefacts. The planet, visible as a bright dot in the lower right of the frame, is ten times as massive as Jupiter and orbits the pair at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the Sun. The other bright dot in the image (top right) is a background star. By taking different images at different times, astronomers were able to distinguish the planet from the background stars. Credit: ESO/Janson et al.

ALT These towering tendrils of cosmic dust and gas sit at the heart of M16, or the Eagle Nebula. The aptly named Pillars of Creation, featured in this stunning Hubble image, are part of an active star-forming region within the nebula and hide newborn stars in their wispy columns.

ALT This image shows the pillars as seen in infrared light, allowing it to pierce through obscuring dust and gas and unveil a more unfamiliar — but just as amazing — view of the pillars. In this ethereal view the entire frame is peppered with bright stars and baby stars are revealed being formed within the pillars themselves. The ghostly outlines of the pillars seem much more delicate, and are silhouetted against an eerie blue haze.

ALT The brain-like orb called PMR 1 has been nicknamed the "Exposed Cranium" nebula; the cooler outer halo of the dying star, colored here in red; and a planetary nebula, known as NGC 650 or the Little Dumbbell

ALT gallery image of six illustrations of various different exopalnets.

ALT A beautiful image of the James Webb space telescope is pictured in front of hexagonal images reminiscent of the cosmos it will explore.

ALT Comparison of the Carina Nebula in visible light (left) and infrared (right), both images by Hubble. In the infrared image, we can see more stars that weren't visible before. Credit: NASA/ESA/M. Livio & Hubble 20th Anniversary Team (STScI)

ALT This Hubble near-infrared composite shows a field rich in bright stars that sport multicolored diffraction spikes. The BOAT GRB's afterglow (circled) shines starlike source two months after it erupted. A sliver of gray near the spot is its home galaxy. The Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 revealed the infrared afterglow (circled) of the BOAT GRB and its host galaxy, seen nearly edge-on as a sliver of light extending from the afterglow's upper left. The burst occurred about 2 billion light-years away. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, A. Levan (Radboud University); Image Processing: Gladys Kober

ALT This image of spiral galaxy NGC 1300 combines multiple observations to map stellar populations and gas. Radio light observed by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), represented in yellow, highlight the clouds of cold molecular gas that provide the raw material from which stars form. Data from the Very Large Telescope’s Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) instrument is represented in red and magenta, capturing the impact of young, massive stars on their surrounding gas. Visible and ultraviolet light captured by the Hubble Space Telescope highlights dust lanes in gold and very young, hot stars in blue. High-resolution infrared images from the Webb Space Telescope will help researchers identify where stars are forming behind dust and study the earliest stages of star formation in this galaxy. Credits: Science: NASA, ESA, ESO-Chile, ALMA, STSci

ALT An image of the spiral of our Milky Way galaxy with the Sin in the middle of the bottom.

ALT Artist concept labeled, 'View Decades After Supernova Occurs', the supernova at our upper right is now a smaller speck of light, encircled by a blast wave. The blast wave, which contains a lethal dose of X-rays, has a cottony white outer ring, and fiery orange inner ring. Both are streaked with fine lines emanating from the gleaming speck at the core. A fine blue haze surrounds the supernova and blast wave. On our left, the large Earth-like planet is no longer bright blue and green. The landmasses are now rendered in muted shades of brown and grey. Yellowed clouds dot the thin, hazy atmosphere, dulling the colors beneath, including the blues of the now murky oceans. These changes were caused by X-rays wiping out most of the planet's ozone layer. This caused an increase in ultraviolet radiation reaching the planet's surface and triggered an extinction event.

ALT A vintage looking NASA Hubble is pictured in space among exoplanets explored.

ALT A gallery view of six different exoplanets: Kepler-16b, Kepler-22b, Kepler 7b, Kepler-452b, KELT-9b and WASP-12b

ALT An artist's rendering of a planet bigger than Jupiter in the dark of space.

ALT 30 Doradus with magnetic field streamlines overlaid 30 Doradus, also known as the Tarantula Nebula, is a region in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Streamlines show the magnetic field morphology from SOFIA HAWC+ polarization maps. These are superimposed on a composite image captured by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope and the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy. Credit: Background: ESO, M.-R. Cioni/VISTA Magellanic Cloud survey. Acknowledgment: Cambridge Astronomical Survey Unit. Streamlines: NASA/SOFIA

ALT This dazzling infrared image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope shows hundreds of thousands of stars crowded into the swirling core of our spiral Milky Way galaxy. In visible-light pictures, this region cannot be seen at all because dust lying between Earth and the galactic center blocks our view.

ALT The background of space is black. Thousands of galaxies appear all across the view. Their shapes and colors vary. Some are various shades of orange, others are white. Most stars appear blue, and are sometimes as large as more distant galaxies that appear next to them. A very bright star is just above and left of center. It has eight bright blue, long diffraction spikes. Between 4 o’clock and 6 o’clock in its spikes are several very bright galaxies. A group of three are in the middle, and two are closer to 4 o’clock. These galaxies are part of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, and they are warping the appearances of galaxies seen around them. Long orange arcs appear at left and right toward the center.

ALT The periodic table organizes all the known elements by atomic number, which is the number of protons in each atom of the element. This version of the table, which draws on data compiled by astronomer Jennifer Johnson from Ohio State University, shows our current understanding of how each element found on Earth was originally produced. Most of them ultimately have cosmic origins. Some elements were created with the birth of the universe, while others were made during the lives or deaths of stars. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will help us understand the cosmic era when stars first began forming. The mission will help scientists learn more about how elements were created and distributed throughout galaxies.

ALT Direct image of two planets around a Sun-like star, maked so you can see a screen over the very bright dot upper left. The direct image of a multi-planet system around a Sun-like star shows the planets, TYC 8998-760-1 b and c, as orange dots visible middle and lower right. Image credit: ESO/Bohn et al.

ALT Blue stars can be seen scattered across the frame, set against a distant backdrop of red-hued cosmic companions. This blue litter most likely formed at the same time from the same collapsing molecular cloud.

ALT 1) upper left: yellow-white star at left of frame, black hole at center right 2) upper right: stream of star gas swirls around and into a black hole 3) lower left: rusty-orange disk forms around a black hole 4) lower right: disk is enlarged, star is gone This sequence of artist's illustrations shows how a black hole can devour a bypassing star. 1. A normal star passes near a supermassive black hole in the center of a galaxy. 2. The star's outer gasses are pulled into the black hole's gravitational field. 3. The star is shredded as tidal forces pull it apart. 4. The stellar remnants are pulled into a donut-shaped ring around the black hole, and will eventually fall into the black hole, unleashing a tremendous amount of light and high-energy radiation. Credits: NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI)

ALT An infographic shows an illustration of the exoplanet Kepler-452 b with the light of its star shining behind it. It says, Kepler-452 b discovered July 23, 2015 The first earth-size discovered around a near solar twin. The discovery brings us closer to finding an Earth like planet. Kepler-452 b is 60% bigger than Earth and its star is 10% larger than our Sun. It is 1,400 light-years from Earth. The planet orbits the star every 385 days. Its temperature is unknown.

ALT New Webb images of Jupiter show the planet's features, including its turbulent Great Red Spot in amazing detail. These images were processed by citizen scientist Judy Schmidt. Image description: Jupiter dominates the black background of space. The image is a composite, and shows Jupiter in enhanced color, featuring the planet’s turbulent Great Red Spot, which appears white here. The planet is striated with swirling horizontal stripes of neon turquoise, periwinkle, light pink, and cream. The stripes interact and mix at their edges like cream in coffee. Along both of the poles, the planet glows in turquoise. Bright orange auroras glow just above the planet’s surface at both poles.

ALT This image shows the most massive planet-hosting star pair to date, b Centauri, and its giant planet b Centauri b. The star pair, which has a total mass of at least six times that of the Sun, is the bright object in the top left corner of the image, the bright and dark rings around it being optical artifacts. The planet, visible as a bright dot in the lower right of the frame, is 10 times as massive as Jupiter and orbits the pair at 100 times the distance Jupiter orbits the Sun. The other bright dot in the image (top right) is a background star. By taking different images at different times, astronomers were able to distinguish the planet from the background stars. Credit: ESO/Janson et al. In December 2021, astronomers announced the discovery of b Cen AB b, an imaged planet that orbits two stars, each more massive than any other star known to host planets.

ALT A periodic table showing that most elements were produced by stars. Many of the elements we find here on Earth are made in the core of stars. These elements travel on to form new stars, planets and everything else in the universe.

ALT In this Webb image, Neptune resembles a pearl with rings that look like ethereal concentric ovals around it. There are 2 thinner, crisper rings and 2 broader, fainter rings. A few extremely bright patches on the lower half of Neptune represent methane ice clouds. Six tiny white dots, which are six of Neptune’s 14 moons, are scattered among the rings. The background of the image is black.

ALT A wide field view showcases Jupiter in the upper right quadrant. The planet’s swirling horizontal stripes are rendered in blues, browns, and cream. Electric blue auroras glow above Jupiter’s north and south poles. A white glow emanates out from the auroras. Along the planet’s equator, rings glow in a faint white. These rings are one million times fainter than the planet itself! At the far left edge of the rings, a moon appears as a tiny white dot. Slightly further to the left, another moon glows with tiny white diffraction spikes. The rest of the image is the blackness of space, with faintly glowing white galaxies in the distance.

ALT Luke Skywalker walks on Tatooine, a desert planet with two suns. Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM.

ALT an artist's illustration shows an exoplanet with two suns beyond in space

ALT Strange new worlds gallery

ALT Illustration shows, at left, a large, bluish foreground planet, to its upper right a more distant, mottled, gray-green world, and opposite that, at the upper right, a red-tinged host star. We see a spray of background stars in the lower right. Artist's impression of two Earth-mass planets orbiting the star GJ 1002. Credit: Alejandro Suárez Mascareño and Inés Bonet (IAC)

ALT A stylized illustration shows the Kepler Space Telescope floating in space next to three gas giant exoplanets colored blue, brown and red, respectively. Each planet has bands of atmosphere. The spacecraft and planets are shown against a similarly-stylized view of the galactic plane of the Milky Way galaxy.

ALT An informational graphic shows 5,000+ exoplanets found. 31% are super-earths, 35% are Neptunelike, 4% are terrestrial and 30% are gas giants.

ALT An image taken from the Saturnian system shows the ringed planet in the foreground and in the dark blue space Earth is a bright dot just below the beautiful rings.

ALT Blue stars can be seen scattered across the frame, set against a distant backdrop of red-hued cosmic companions. This blue litter most likely formed at the same time from the same collapsing molecular cloud.

ALT An artist's rendering shows a dark exoplanet with its bright star in the background. Another rocky exoplanet is shown nearby in a field of stars.

ALT The composite image here combines data from @NASAWebb, @Chandraxray, @nasaHubble, Spitzer, XMM-Newton, and ESO telescopes. This image: NGC 346 shows thousands of specks of light blanket the blackness of space. A ribbon of thick orange cloud runs along the bottom edge and streaks up the right side; a similar orange patch can be found near upper left. Between these gas plumes the star cluster is densely packed with specks of white, blue and purple. At left, a large, bright white gleaming dot (amongst smaller dots) is surrounded by purple mist. Credit: 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

ALT An artist illustration of a gas giant exoplanet with a dark atmosphere

ALT With a bright star partially obscured, two bright dots – planets – are revealed.

ALT Scientist Elisa Quintana stands next to a cutout of Margaret Hamilton and the code she wrote to get astronauts to the moon

ALT The periodic table organizes all the known elements by atomic number, which is the number of protons in each atom of the element. This version of the table, which draws on data compiled by astronomer Jennifer Johnson from Ohio State University, shows our current understanding of how each element found on Earth was originally produced. Most of them ultimately have cosmic origins. Some elements were created with the birth of the universe, while others were made during the lives or deaths of stars. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope will help us understand the cosmic era when stars first began forming. The mission will help scientists learn more about how elements were created and distributed throughout galaxies.

ALT An image of Saturn's rings from the Cassini spacecraft shows Saturn’s rings displaying their subtle colors in this view captured on Aug. 22, 2009. It looks like a tight shot of a record album done in muted grays and yellows. The particles that make up the rings range in size from smaller than a grain of sand to as large as mountains, and are mostly made of water ice. The exact nature of the material responsible for bestowing color on the rings remains a matter of intense debate among scientists. Images taken using red, green and blue spectral filters were combined to create this natural color view. Cassini's narrow-angle camera took the images at a distance of approximately 1.27 million miles (2.05 million kilometers) from the center of the rings.

ALT This @NASAHubble image shows a nearly spherical gathering of white stars at center top. Blue gas cloud extends from top left to center bottom. Hubble's image shows the star cluster NGC 1850, located about 160,000 light-years away. For this image, two filters were used with the camera to gather data, one at visible wavelengths the other at near-infrared wavelengths. Following chromatic order, the shorter wavelength visible light data is blue, while the longer near-infrared data is red. Credits: NASA, ESA and P. Goudfrooij (Space Telescope Science Institute); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)

ALT In this image, Hubble has captured the brilliant, compact center of the globular cluster M70 in both visible and infrared light. Quarters are always tight in globular clusters, where the mutual hold of gravity binds together hundreds of thousands of stars in a small region of space.

ALT An hourglass-shaped, multi-color cloud set against the black, starry background of space. This cloud of dust and gas is illuminated by light from a protostar, a star in the earliest stages of formation. The upper “bulb” of the hourglass is orange, while the lower “bulb” transitions from white to dark blue. Together, the two bulbs stretch out like butterfly wings turned 90 degrees to the side. Extending from the upper and lower bulbs are long, wispy filaments of color, looking almost like burning fire. In the center of the hourglass shape is a small, dark demarcation line. This line is an edge-on view of a protoplanetary disk, a disk of material being pulled into a star as it forms.

ALT This image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows a bright dot at the center of star-filled black space. The bright dot is actually two stars meeting, as their orbits bring them together every 8 years. The stellar pair are surrounded by 17 rings of gas and dust that appear orangish gray, like the rings of a tree trunk. The rings have a slight rectangular shape and are very clear and defined starting at about 1 o’clock on a clockface. The rings start to break up a bit to our view traveling clockwise around the image. As you arrive at the 8 o’clock position, only parts of about six rings can be seen as they disappear from view.

ALT Crowded field of colorful red, white and blue stars taken by the Hubble Space Telescope.

ALT An illustration of many different exoplanets in an artistic arrangement.

ALT An artist's illustration shows a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri This artist’s impression shows a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the solar system. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image. Proxima b is a little more massive than the Earth and orbits in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri, where the temperature is suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface. A rocky surface is shown with a red sky with several stars. Credits: ESO/M. Kornmesser A rocky extrasolar planet with a mass similar to Earth’s was detected around Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to our sun. This planet, called Proxima b, is in an orbit that would allow it to have liquid water on its surface, thus raising the question of its habitability.