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Space
Space
Science
Kenna Hughes-Castleberry

Carina Nebula shines with white-blue stars | Space photo of the day for Jan. 5, 2026

A cluster of stars inside a large nebula. The clouds of gas and dust are predominantly bright red in colour and wispy, akin to flames. They are clumped in the bottom-left corner. Other clouds, deeper in the cluster behind many of the stars, appear pale pink. The stars are concentrated in the top half of the image and are mostly small, bright white and six-pointed. They cast blue light over the nebula. Other stars with very long spikes surrounding them lie in the foreground.

Recently, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) took a stunning image of the star cluster known as Westerlund 2, located in a stellar nursery called Gum 29 found within the Carina Nebula. The cluster is 6-to-13 light-years across and has some of the hottest and biggest stars found in the Milky Way.

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