Six of the most amazing space pictures from 2023

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) helped make 2023 the year of amazing space images. But this groundbreaking telescope wasn’t the only source of visual wonder. A series of new missions are sending back photos from space, and the view from Earth isn’t bad either. Here are 6 photos that surprised us the most.

The star in the photo above was captured by JWST as it prepared to explode. It’s called WR 124 and has about 30 times the mass of the Sun.

When a star that large runs out of hydrogen to burn in its core, heavier elements begin to fuse together. This fusion creates a powerful burst of energy, sending gusts of wind at speeds of millions of kilometers per hour. When these powerful winds strip away the outer layers of a star, it becomes a star known as a Wolf-Rayet star.

It will explode as a supernova within a few million years after it peels off. The purple spots in this photo are clouds of dust and gas that were the outer layer of WR 124. It has already lost about 10 times the mass of the Sun. If these layers are not intact, they are doomed to explode into a supernova.

Then we have the tallest solar tornado ever recorded (above). The event occurred on March 14, when the rotation of the sun’s magnetic field stirred up plasma near the north pole. This feature rose above the surface of the Sun, and the giant flare reached a height of 178,000 kilometers, or nearly 14 times the diameter of Earth.

This image is the result of a careful collaboration between astrophotographers Jason Genzel and Andrew McCarthy. They used high-speed cameras to record the event, and it took him five days and 90,000 individual shots to create the photos. The sun appears furry in this image because it is covered in millions of stirring geysers of plasma, each lasting only a few minutes.

This bright explosion (above) reveals the newborn star’s incredible supersonic jet. These result in what are known as Herbig-Haro objects. The star itself is hidden within the dark cloud of gas from which it formed, but when jets erupt from its sides, they collide with surrounding gas and dust, creating huge shock waves that cause them to glow.

This particular object, called Helbig Halo 211, is located in the constellation Perseus, about 1000 light-years from Earth. That makes this object one of the closest Herbig halo objects we know of, and is why JWST was able to capture the most detailed images of any object ever taken. This reveals the jet’s strange wiggles, which could indicate that Herbig Haro 211 actually has a companion star.

Return to our solar system and proceed to Jupiter’s moon Io (above). In October, NASA’s Juno spacecraft flew just 7,000 miles (11,645 kilometers) above the moon’s surface, capturing this amazing image of it passing by. This is one of the best photos of Io ever taken, with enough detail to show the shadows of some of the giant volcanoes.

Despite being only slightly larger than Earth’s moon, Io is thought to be home to more than 400 active volcanoes, making it the most geologically active body in the solar system. Lava flows from these volcanoes give Io its distinctive mottled color, which is further accentuated in this image. In 2024, Juno will get even closer to the surface of this strange little moon, providing even more information about its ever-changing geology.

And to our moon. On August 23, India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission landed near the moon’s south pole for the first time. This photo (above) of the Vikram lander landing on the moon was taken by the mission’s Pragyan rover a week later. The study of the moon’s south pole, initiated by Chandrayaan-3, is particularly important because of the large amount of ice there, which could help in future human exploration and the establishment of a permanent lunar base.

Our final images become more ephemeral. Above is Comet Nishimura, which shows a striped pattern in the night sky as seen from Earth.

Two rare green comets made a dramatic appearance in the sky this year. First, in early February, comet C/2022 E3 approached Earth for the first time in 50,000 years. Then, in August, amateur astronomer Hideo Nishimura discovered another comet (now named after him) that remained visible for about two months. These comets appear green because the gas surrounding their rocky core contains diatomic carbon. Diatomic carbon is a relatively rare substance consisting of a pair of bonded carbon atoms.

Make the most of your images of Comet Nishimura now. The comet takes about 437 years to orbit the Sun, so it won’t be seen again until the 25th century.