A cosmic cherry on top 🍒⁣ ⁣ NASAWebb treated us to a sweet perspective: Herbig-Haro 49/50—a towering swirl from a nearby protostar—is (coincidentally) topped with a multi-hued spiral galaxy.⁣ ⁣ Herbig-Haro objects are outflows produced by jets launched from a nearby, forming star. The outflows, which can extend for light-years, plow into a denser region of material. This creates shock waves, heating the material to higher temperatures. The material then cools by emitting light at visible and infrared wavelengths.⁣ ⁣ The galaxy that appears, by chance, at the tip of this cosmic soft-serve is a much more distant, face-on spiral galaxy. It has a prominent central bulge represented in blue, filled with older stars. The bulge also shows hints of “side lobes,” suggesting that this could be a barred spiral galaxy. Reddish clumps within the spiral arms show the locations of warm dust and groups of forming stars.⁣ ⁣ Image description: This cosmic image is dominated with billowing clouds of ora...