Selene Y. Willis, PhD- JEDI STEM Educator

ALT A view of a segment of the Space Launch System rocket’s orange core stage and its white solid rocket booster. The booster has the red NASA worm painted on it vertically.

ALT NASA’s Orion capsule sits atop its European-built servicing module. Orion has silver, reflective paneling and the module is white. Together they are upright in a processing facility. The NASA emblem, blue with a red streak over and behind the letters N A S A, is painted on this side of the servicing module.

ALT The background of space is black. Thousands of galaxies appear all across the view. Their shapes and colors vary. Some are various shades of orange, others are white. Most stars appear blue, and are sometimes as large as more distant galaxies that appear next to them. A very bright star is just above and left of center. It has eight bright blue, long diffraction spikes. Between 4 o’clock and 6 o’clock in its spikes are several very bright galaxies. A group of three are in the middle, and two are closer to 4 o’clock. These galaxies are part of the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723, and they are warping the appearances of galaxies seen around them. Long orange arcs appear at left and right toward the center.