This stunning new mosaic of images from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope showcases the nearby star-forming cluster, NGC 1333. The nebula is in the Perseus molecular cloud, and located approximately 960 light-years away.

Webb’s superb sensitivity allows astronomers to investigate young objects with extremely low masses. Some of the faintest ‘stars’ in the picture are in fact newly born free-floating brown dwarfs with masses comparable to those of giant planets.

The same cluster was featured as the 33rd anniversary image of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope in April of 2023. Hubble’s image just scratched the surface of this region, because clouds of dust obscure much of the star formation process. Observing with a larger aperture and in the infrared part of the spectrum, Webb is capable of peering through the dusty veil to reveal newborn stars, brown dwarfs and planetary mass objects.

The centre of the image presents a deep peek into the heart of the NGC 1333 cloud. Across the image we see large patches of orange, which represent gas glowing in the infrared. These so-called Herbig-Haro objects form when ionised material ejected from young stars collides with the surrounding cloud. They are hallmarks of a very active site of star formation.

Many of the young stars in this image are surrounded by discs of gas and dust, which may eventually produce planetary systems. On the right hand side of the image, we can glimpse the shadow of one of these discs oriented edge-on — two dark cones emanating from opposite sides, seen against a bright background.

Similarly to the young stars in this mosaic, our own Sun and planets formed inside a dusty molecular cloud, 4.6 billion years ago. Our Sun didn’t form in isolation but as part of a cluster, which was perhaps even more massive than NGC 1333. The cluster in the mosaic, only 1–3 million years old, presents us with an opportunity to study stars like our Sun, as well as brown dwarfs and free-floating planets, in their nascent stages.

The images were captured as part of the Webb observation programme 1202 (PI: A. Scholz) to survey a large portion of NGC 1333. These data constitute the first deep spectroscopic survey of the young cluster, and have identified brown dwarfs down to planetary masses using the observatory’s Near-InfraRed Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS). The first results from this survey have been accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journal.

[Image Description: A nebula made up of cloudy gas and dust in the form of soft and wispy clouds and, in the centre, thin and highly detailed layers pressed close together. Large, bright stars surrounded by six long points of light are dotted over the image, as well as some small, point-like stars embedded in the clouds. The clouds are lit up in blue close to the stars; orange colours show clouds that glow in infrared light.]

Peter Ostroushko (August 12, 1953 – February 24, 2021 Minneapolis) was an American violinist and mandolinist. He performed regularly on the radio program A Prairie Home Companion and with a variety of bands and orchestras in Minneapolis–Saint Paul and nationally. He won a regional Emmy Award for the soundtrack he composed for the documentary series Minnesota: A History of the Land (2005).

Mark Freuder Knopfler OBE (born 12 August 1949) is a British musician. He was the lead guitarist, singer and songwriter of the rock band Dire Straits from 1977 to 1995, and he is one of the two members who stayed throughout the band’s existence, along with the bassist John Illsley. He pursued a solo career after the band dissolved, and is now an independent artist.

Knopfler was born in Glasgow, and raised in Blyth, near Newcastle. After graduating from the University of Leeds and working for three years as a college lecturer, Knopfler co-founded Dire Straits with his younger brother, David Knopfler. The band recorded six albums, including Brothers in Arms (1985), one of the best-selling albums in history. After Dire Straits disbanded in 1995, Knopfler began a solo career, and has produced ten solo albums to date. He has composed and produced film scores for nine films, including Local Hero (1983), Cal (1984), The Princess Bride (1987), Wag the Dog(1997) and Altamira (2016). He has produced albums for Tina Turner, Bob Dylan, and Randy Newman.

Described by Classic Rock as a virtuoso, Knopfler is a fingerstyle guitarist and was ranked 27th on Rolling Stone‘s list of the “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”. With Dire Straits, Knopfler sold between 100 million and 120 million records. A four-time Grammy Award winner, Knopfler is the recipient of the Edison Award, the Steiger Awardand the Ivor Novello Award, as well as holding three honorary doctorate degrees in music from universities in the United Kingdom. Knopfler was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Dire Straits in 2018.

Roy James Gaines (August 12, 1937 – August 11, 2021) was an American Texas bluesand electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. He wrote and recorded the song “A Hell of a Night”, which was first issued on his 1982 album Gainelining. He was the younger brother of the blues musician Grady Gaines.

Patrick Bruce Metheny (born August 12, 1954) is an American jazz guitarist and composer.

He was the leader of the Pat Metheny Group (1977–2010) and continues to work in various small-combo, duet, and solo settings, as well as other side projects. His style incorporates elements of progressive and contemporary jazz, latin jazz, and jazz fusion. He has three gold albums and 20 Grammy Awards, and is the only person to have won Grammys in 10 categories.

Thetakudi Harihara Vinayakram (born 11 August 1942), also known as

Vikku Vinayakram, is an Indian percussionist. He is also known as the God of ghatam. He plays Carnatic music with the ghatam, an earthen pot, and is credited with popularising the ghatam.

He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 2002, and later the 2012 Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship, the highest honour in the performing arts conferred by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s National Academy for Music, Dance and Drama. In 2014 he was awarded the Padma Bhushan. He won Grammy award in 1991 for his work on Mickey Hart‘s album Planet Drum.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope Picture of the Week zooms in on the feathery spiral arms of the galaxyNGC 45, which lies just 22 million light-years away in the constellation Cetus (The Whale).

The data used to create this portrait were drawn from two complementary observing programmes. The first took a broad view of 50 nearby galaxies, leveraging Hubble’s ability to observe light from the ultraviolet to the near-infrared in order to study star formation in these galaxies. The second programme examined many of the same nearby galaxies as the first, narrowing in on a particular wavelength of red light called H-alpha. Star-forming nebulae are powerful producers of H-alpha light, and several of these regions can be identified across NGC 45 by their bright pink-red colour.

These observing programmes aimed to study star formation in galaxies of different sizes, structures, and degrees of isolation — and NGC 45 makes for a particularly interesting target. Though it may appear to be a regular spiral galaxy, NGC 45 is actually a remarkable type called a low surface brightness galaxy.

Low surface brightness galaxies are fainter than the night sky itself, making them incredibly difficult to detect. They appear unexpectedly faint because they have relatively few stars for the amount of gas and dark matterthey carry. In the decades since the first low surface brightness galaxy was serendipitously discovered in 1986, researchers have learned that 30–60% of all galaxies may fall into this category. Studying these hard-to-detect galaxies is key to understanding how galaxies form and evolve, and Hubble’s sensitive instruments are equal to the task.

[Image Description: This Hubble image features a close-up view of the outer arms of the spiral galaxy NGC 45. These spiral arms are filled with tiny blue dots – stars – and glowing pink clouds – star-forming nebulae. This is shown against a dark background.]

Michael Fonfara (11 August 1946 – 8 January 2021) was a Canadian keyboardist who was most notable for his work as a member of The Electric Flag and Rhinoceros in the 1960s, Rough Trade and Lou Reed‘s backing band in the 1970s and The Downchild Blues Band, from 1990 to his death. He studied classical piano at The Royal Conservatory of Music. He is a multiple Maple Blues Award winner as Piano/Keyboardist of the year and a Juno Award winner with the Downchild Blues Band.^[1] His distinguished musical career was so honoured by the Maple Blues Awards as early as 2000 and a Juno Award in 2014.