Another beautiful picture from space, taken by the James Webb Space Telescope.

This appeared on Astronomy Picture of the Day for 3/2/2026.

It’s called the Red Spider Planetary Nebula, and is the result of a star ejecting its outer gases to become a white dwarf.

This is quite obviously an image of Jupiter, the large spot to the lower right of the planet is ummistakable. But it is also not the normal view of the planet. The colours are different for a start – and the spot isn’t red (really a rust colour.) Notable, too, are the bright polar aurorae.

Also visible is Jupiter’s ring system with the satellite Adrastea at their leftmost edge and Amalthea further out.

From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 18/1/26 this is Jupiter in infra-red light as imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope.

From Astronomy Picture of the Day for 29/12/23. This is an image of Uranus and some of its moons taken by the NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on the James Webb Space Telescope. Uranus’s rings are also clearly visible. These moons are all named after characters in Shakespeare plays.

It never fails to astound me we can view such sharp images of faraway objects.

A brilliant image from the James Webb Space Telescope as seen in Astronomy Picture of the Day for 23/9/22.

The image is different from the usual pictures of Neptune as the James Webb Space Telescope is “seeing” in infra-red light, hence the relative brightness of the rings, its planet Triton to the top left and of the storm clouds in its atmosphere.