This image from Webb’s MIRI (Mid-Infrared Instrument) shows the star system Beta Pictoris. An edge-on disk of dusty debris generated by collisions between planetesimals (orange) dominates the view. A hotter, secondary disk (cyan) is inclined by about 5 degrees relative to the primary disk. The curved feature at upper right, which the science team nicknamed the “cat’s tail,” has never been seen before. A coronagraph (black circle and two small disks) has been used to block the light of the central star, whose location is marked with a white star shape. In this image light at 15.5 microns is colored cyan and 23 microns is orange (filters F1550C and F2300C, respectively).

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, C. Stark and K. Lawson (NASA GSFC), J. Kammerer (ESO), and M. Perrin (STScI).