James Webb Space Telescope celebrates first anniversary with new image

World's most powerful telescope captures Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth

The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth, as captured by the James Webb Space Telescope. Photo: Nasa

The James Webb Space Telescope has released a stunning new image to mark its first anniversary in space.

The image was published by Nasa on Wednesday and shows a star birth as it has never been seen before.

The James Webb Space Telescope captured the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex – the closest star-forming region to Earth – up close.

It is relatively small, with jets bursting from young stars, which has never been seen before.

The young stars at the centre of these discs are similar in mass to the Sun, or smaller.

Uranus is surrounded by 13 rings and 27 small moons as it rotates at a nearly 90-degree angle from the plane of its orbit. Photo: Nasa

Complex organic molecules similar to smoke or smog in a galaxy more than 12 billion light-years from Earth. Photo: Nasa

A delicate image of dust structures and bright star clusters taken by the James Webb Space Telescope. Photo: Nasa

Saturn has seven rings with several gaps and divisions between them, as well as 53 known moons. Photo: Nasa

Star cluster NGC 346, spiral galaxies NGC 1672 and Messier 74, and the Pillars of Creation, towering tendrils of cosmic dust and gas at the heart of the Eagle Nebula. Photo: Nasa

An infrared image of Neptune, the only planet in our solar system not visible to the naked eye. Photo: Nasa

Every eight years, the two stars in this image are brought together by their orbits – creating colliding streams of gas that, under the right conditions, form a new ring of dust. Photo: Nasa

A part of the Orion Nebula known as the Orion Bar. Photo: Nasa

A crowded field of galaxies, along with stars crowned with the James Webb Space Telescope's signature six-pointed diffraction spikes. Photo: Nasa

The NGC 3256 spiral galaxy was formed after a collision of two massive galaxies about 500 million years ago. Photo: Nasa

The Wolf-Rayet 124 star, featured in an image combining near-infrared and mid-infrared wavelengths of light. Photo: Nasa

An hourglass-shaped cloud of dust and gas is illuminated by light from a protostar. Photo: Nasa

Two views of the Southern Ring Nebula, which show the planetary nebula as a misshapen oval. Photo: Nasa

A composite image of the Cartwheel Galaxy captured by the James Webb Space Telescope in August 2022. AFP

A cluster of stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, near the Milky Way. Photo: JWST

A colour composite image of the Messier 74 galaxy. Photo: JWST

The gravity of galaxy cluster MACS0647 bends and magnifies light from the more distant MACS0647-JD. Photo: Nasa

The 'Pillars of Creation' — clouds of hydrogen gas and dust 6,500 light years from Earth — captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, left, and James Webb Space Telescope. AP

Dust rings resembling a fingerprint created by a rare type of star and its companion. PA

Images of the asteroid Dimorphos hours after Nasa crashed a spacecraft into it in September 2022. EPA

Neptune and seven of its 14 known moons. AFP

Thousands of young stars in a stellar nursery called the Tarantula Nebula. Photo: Nasa

A image of an exoplanet — a gas giant with no rocky surface. Photo: Nasa, ESA and CSA

Glass-z13, the oldest galaxy to be detected, was formed about 300 million years after the Big Bang. Photo: JWST

Jupiter and its moon Europa. Photo: Nasa

Jupiter and its moons Europa, Thebe and Metis. Photo: Nasa

Another image of Jupiter and some of its 79 moons. Photo: Nasa

An image of galaxy cluster Smacs 0723 taken by the James Webb telescope. Photo: Nasa

Stephan’s Quintet is an area in space that has five galaxies. Photo: JWST

The 'Cosmic Cliffs' of the Carina Nebula. Photo: JWST

An anniversary image shows the birth of a star in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. Photo: Nasa

The largest in the image is the star S1, which appears in a glowing cave it is carving out with its stellar winds in the lower half.

The lighter coloured gas surrounding S1 consists of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a family of carbon-based molecules that are among the most common compounds found in space.

The image was released to celebrate the telescope's year of achievements through images and the other discoveries it has made so far, as well as its effect on exploring the distant universe and helping scientists understand distant and neighbouring worlds better.

First anniversary

It's been one year since Nasa's pioneering James Webb Space Telescope sent back to Earth its first stunning images from outer space.

Developed by Nasa, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, the $10 billion telescope is the result of nearly three decades of work.

It has been able to show us the universe like no other instrument before, allowing us to discover faraway galaxies and learn about how stars are born and how they die.

It is the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits the Earth at an altitude of about 550km.

The telescope was launched on Christmas Day in 2021 from South America and reached its final destination in space – more than 1.6 million kilometres away, about four times the distance between the Earth and the Moon – at L2 Lagrange Point, in January last year.

The space agency revealed the first images from the telescope on July 12, 2022.

The images helped to reveal space objects that were invisible to telescopes not as powerful as this one.

Images included high-resolution photos of the Carina nebula, the Southern Ring nebula, Stephen's Quintet, and a 4.6 billion-year-old galaxy cluster called SMACS 0723.

It was the first time we were able to see the faraway galaxy.

Astronomers at the time said the first images exceeded their expectations and that the telescope would "soon transform our understanding of the universe".

The telescope has since discovered the oldest galaxy in the universe, an Earth-like planet outside our solar system, and captured incredible images of the rings of Saturn.

A year later, the telescope is still orbiting the Sun and sending amazing images back to Earth.