Enlarge / The first-anniversary image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope displays star birth like it’s never been seen before. (credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI))
To commemorate the first year of scientific operations by the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA has released a stunning new image of a stellar nursery.
The photo is gorgeous. It could easily hang in a museum, as if it were a large canvas painting produced by a collaboration of impressionistic and modern artists. But it is very real, showcasing the process of stars being born a mere 390 light years from Earth. This is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth.
Given the nursery's proximity and Webb's unparalleled scientific instruments, we have never had this kind of crystal-clear view of these processes before. The detail revealed in this image of about 50 stars is truly remarkable, a distillation of all that Webb has delivered over the last 12 months and all that it promises to do over the next 10 or 20 years.
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