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.

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.