Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex | NASA Chandra & Webb Space Telescopes

Rho Ophiuchi Cloud Complex | NASA Chandra & Webb Space Telescopes

This is a composite image from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the James Webb Space Telescope. Pictured is Rho Ophiuchi, at a distance of about 390 light-years from Earth. Rho Ophiuchi is a cloud complex filled with gas and stars of varying sizes and ages. Being one of the closest star-forming regions, Rho Ophiuchi is a great place for astronomers to study young stars. In this image, X-rays from Chandra are purple and reveal the hot, outer atmospheres of infant stars. Infrared data from Webb's NIRCam is red, yellow, cyan, light blue, and darker blue and provides views of the spectacular regions of gas and dust.

Image Description: The murky green and gold cloud resembles a ghostly head in profile, swooping down from the upper left, trailing tendrils of hair. Cutting across the bottom edge and lower righthand corner of the image is a long, narrow, brick red cloud which resembles the ember of a stick pulled from a fire. Several large white stars dot the image. Many are surrounded by glowing neon purple rings, and gleam with diffraction spikes.

Image Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/MIT/C. Canizares; IR: NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/K. Pontoppidan 

Image Processing: NASA/ESA/STScI/Alyssa Pagan, NASA/CXC/SAO/L. Frattare and J. Major

Release Date: July 11, 2024

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