Chandra Release - March 19, 2026

Visual Description: Spring Collection

This release features a series of composite images, each highlighting a different star-forming region, or "stellar nursery". The bright, colorful images are individually labeled, and presented in a three by two grid.

The first image, in the grid's upper left, features a young star cluster known as Westerlund 2. Here, scores of gleaming white specks ringed in neon pink are scattered across the image in a band that stretches from our lower right to our upper left, and beyond. The pink data represent stars seen with Chandra. Clouds of brick-orange dust enter the image from our lower left, and spread along the bottom edge of the frame.

Centered at the top of the grid is NGC 346, a star-forming region in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Here, tiny specks in golden orange, neon blue, and white, are scattered across a dark blue sky. Long streaks of hazy cloud coalesce on the left side of the image. A large, bright, neon pink X-ray cloud, seen with Chandra, hangs in the upper right.

In the upper right corner of the grid is Cygnus OB3, the most mature stellar nursery in the batch. Here, tiny white gleaming specks fill a black sky tinged with golden orange and silver haze. Several larger white spheres with faint outer rings in blues and greens dot the image, including a black hole and a massive star at the center of the frame.

In the second row of the grid, at our lower left, is a composite image of the Cat's Paw Nebula. Here, pockets of starry blue sky appear behind thick, overlapping rings of dark orange cloud. At the center of the image, tucked amongst the clouds, is a mottled patch of purple. This patch represents X-ray data gathered by Chandra.

Centered at the bottom of the grid is the Pelican Nebula. Here, a hazy blue sky dotted with pink, white, and golden specks stretches across much of the frame. A dense, dark-orange cloud enters the composite image from lower right. Long, finger-like tendrils grow out of the cloud, as if reaching for distant baby stars.

And finally, at the lower righthand corner of the grid, is a composite image of the Flame Nebula. Here, a dense dusty-grey haze blankets the frame. Several dozen young stars light up the dust and gas cloud, white at the core with thick, neon purple-pink halos showing X-rays collected by Chandra.