The James Webb Space Telescope's one-year anniversary of science and images

By John Wells,

Published July 20, 2023 at 11:34 AM MDT

The first anniversary image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displays star birth like it’s never been seen before, full of detailed, impressionistic texture. The subject is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. It is a relatively small, quiet stellar nursery, but you’d never know it from Webb’s chaotic close-up. Jets bursting from young stars crisscross the image, impacting the surrounding interstellar gas and lighting up molecular hydrogen, shown in red. Some stars display the telltale shadow of a circumstellar disk, the makings of future planetary systems.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) lifted off on Christmas Day 2021. It spent the next six months testing its instrumentation packages and getting into position 1 million miles from earth — four times further away than our moon. Today marks one year since the release of the first set of breathtaking images from NASA’s largest and most powerful space telescope. Images that are already revolutionizing astronomy. NASA expert Tom Harkins joins to celebrate these incredible discoveries and talk about what's next.

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svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a014300/a014349/New.mp4

Webb Celebrates First Year of Science With New Image | NASA

Webb Home (webbtelescope.org)