NASA celebrated the first year of discoveries from the James Webb Telescope with the release of a new image.
Webb’s first full-color images were released on July 12, 2022. Since then, Webb has discovered some of the earliest galaxies ever observed, delivered detailed views of the atmospheres of planets outside our solar system, and captured new views of planets within our solar system.
“In just one year, the James Webb Space Telescope has transformed humanity’s view of the cosmos, peering into dust clouds and seeing light from faraway corners of the universe for the very first time. Every new image is a new discovery, empowering scientists around the globe to ask and answer questions they once could never dream of,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.
The new Webb image released on July 12, 2023, features the nearest star-forming region to Earth. It is 390 light-years away, which means the Webb telescope can get highly detailed close-up images.
“Webb’s image of Rho Ophiuchi allows us to witness a very brief period in the stellar lifecycle with new clarity. Our own Sun experienced a phase like this, long ago, and now we have the technology to see the beginning of another’s star’s story,” said Klaus Pontoppidan, who served as Webb project scientist at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, since before the telescope’s launch and through the first year of operations.
Rho Ophiuchi photo
NASA provided the following description for the photo above: “An active star-forming region. Red dual opposing jets coming from young stars fill the darker top half of the image, while a glowing pale-yellow, cave-like structure is bottom center, tilted toward two o’clock, with a bright star at its center. The dust of the cave structure becomes wispy toward eight o’clock, trailing off and allowing stars and distant galaxies to show through. Above the arched top of the dust cave three groupings of stars with diffraction spikes are arranged. Smaller stars are scattered around the image. A dark cloud sits at the top of the arch of the glowing dust cave, with one streamer curling down the right-hand side. The dark shadow of the cloud appears pinched in the center, with light emerging in a triangle shape above and below the pinch, revealing the presence of a star inside the dark cloud. The image’s largest jets of red material emanate from within this dark cloud, thick and displaying structure like the rough face of a cliff, glowing brighter at the edges. At the top center of the image, a star displays another, larger pinched dark shadow, this time vertically. To the left of this star is a more wispy, indistinct region, like this star is also beginning to clear out space around itself like the one at the center of the dusty cave below.”
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