James Webb Space Telescope anniversary: Stunning new image celebrates first year of mission

Celebrating one year of the #jameswebbspacetelescope amazing us with unprecedented views into the depths of #space.
(Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA) pic.twitter.com/PbtKXNScdh

— IE Science (@iexpressscience) July 12, 2023

The image is of a star-forming region in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex about 390 million light-years away from us. Since its is quite close in cosmic terms, Webb can take a detailed close-up of the region without any foreground stars in the intervening space.

🎂 To celebrate the completion of a successful first year, this new Webb image brings you the nearest star-forming region to us — the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, located at 390 light-years.

🔎 Zoom in to it 👇 pic.twitter.com/dyshJt3epU

— ESA Webb Telescope (@ESA_Webb) July 12, 2023

The region in the image contains about 50 young stars with all of being similar in mass to our Sun or smaller. The densest areas of the region are the darkest in the image, where thich cocoons of dust are forming protostars.

It is dominated by red jets of molecular hydrogen, appearing horizontally across the upper third and vertically on the right. The red jets occur when a star first bursts through its birth envelope of cosmic dust. At that time, it shoots out a pair of opposing jets into space. In the lower half of the image, by contrast, the star S1 can be seen carving out a glowing cave of dust. That is the only star in the image that is significantly more massive than the star of our solar system.

This image makes it clear that one year into its mission, the James Webb Space Telescope seems to be just getting started. Observations for the second year have already been selected, and the telescope is likely to continue wowing us with its capabilities as another year passes by.