IC 348 Crop: Spiral galaxies

This image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope shows a few of the spiral galaxies that can be seen behind the clouds of gas that make up the nebula around IC 348. The nebula is located around 1000 light-years from Earth: these spiral galaxies are a thousand times further away than that, being millions of light-years distant. The small, featureless dots in the background are further galaxies, and these are a thousand times further away again, at distances up to billions of light-years from Earth.

You can view the full image from which this crop was taken here.

[Image description: A dark region of space. In the centre lies a relatively purple-coloured spiral galaxy, with two thick, loosely-wound arms that each end in a long tail. Two smaller, more irregularly-shaped spiral galaxies in similar colours are visible in the corner. Dozens of distant galaxies in the background are little more than misshapen, colourful dots; there are also a few stars with bright cores.]