NASA releases 4 cosmic images in red, white and blue ahead of America’s 250th birthday

Four cosmic images in red, white and blue have been unveiled in celebration of America’s 250th birthday.

NASA released the space pictures on Tuesday (6/30) that were all captured by its Chandra X-ray Observatory.

They said the observations are “rendered in red, white, and blue that represent the wonders of the universe the agency explores.”

The pictures include Cassiopeia A, expanding debris from a massive star that exploded, and NGC 3603, a giant cloud where new stars are forming.

Also featured is Messier 94, a spiral galaxy with a bright inner ring of star birth, and ZwCl 0024+1652, a galaxy cluster made up of many galaxies bound together by gravity.

Chandra is NASA’s flagship X-ray telescope, launched in 1999 and operated from orbit to study high-energy regions of the universe such as exploding stars, black holes and hot gas in galaxies and clusters.

The US is preparing to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States’ Declaration of Independence on July 4.