Amazing images show the Universe like never before

It was the $10 billion gift to the world. A machine that would show us our place in the Universe.

The James Webb Space Telescope was launched exactly one year ago, on Christmas Day. It had taken three decades to plan, design and build.

Many wondered if this successor to the famous Hubble Space Telescope could live up to expectations.

We had to wait a few months while their epic 6.5m primary mirror was unpacked and focused, and their other systems tested and calibrated.

But yes, it was everything they said it would be. The US, European and Canadian space agencies threw a party in July to release the first color images. What you see on this page are some of the later published images that you may have missed.

The first thing to remember about James Webb is that it is an infrared telescope. It sees the sky at wavelengths of light that are beyond what our eyes are capable of discerning.

Astronomers use their various cameras to explore regions of the cosmos, such as these great towers of gas and dust. The Pillars were a favorite Hubble target. It would take several years traveling at the speed of light to go through this entire scene.

Carina Nebula

They call this scene the Cosmic Cliffs. It is the edge of a gigantic gas cavity inside another dusty, star-forming nebula known as Carina.

The cavity has been sculpted by intense ultraviolet radiation and winds from young, hot stars that have just emerged.

From one side of this image to the other there is a distance of approximately 15 light years. One light year is about 9.46 trillion km (5.88 trillion miles).

Chariot Wheel Galaxy

This large galaxy on the right was discovered by the great Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky in the 1940s. Its complex cartwheel structure is the result of a head-on collision with another galaxy. The diameter is about 145,000 light years.

planet neptune

James Webb isn’t just looking at the Deep Universe. It also probes objects in our own solar system. This jewel is the eighth planet from the Sun: Neptune, seen with its rings. The little white dots around it are moons, and so is the big “pointed star” above. This is Triton, Neptune’s largest moon. The spikes are an artifact of the way the James Webb mirror system is constructed.

The story continues

Read more: Ringed Neptune captured by the James Webb telescope

Orion Nebula

Orion is one of the best-known regions of the sky. It is a star-forming region, or nebula, about 1,350 light-years from Earth. Here, Webb depicts a feature called the Orion Bar, which is a wall of dense gas and dust.

dimorphic

In one of the big space stories of the year, Nasa launched a spacecraft at an asteroid, called Dimorphos, to see if it was possible to divert the path of the 160m wide rock. It was a test of a strategy to defend the Earth from threatening asteroids. James Webb caught the shower of 1,000 tons of debris shot up on impact.

Read more: Debris-Propelled Asteroid Deflection Experiment

WR-140

This was one of the most intriguing Webb images of the year. The “WR” refers to Wolf-Rayet. It’s a kind of star, a big one coming to the end of its life. Wolf-Rayets drive huge gaseous winds into space. A companion star not seen in this image is compressing these winds to form dust. The dusty shells you see extend outward more than 10 trillion km. This is 70,000 times the distance between Earth and our Sun.

Read more: The mystery of the dusty star solved by the James Webb telescope

ghost galaxy

Nicknamed the Ghost Galaxy, M74 is known for its ostentatious spiral arms. It is about 32 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Pisces and is almost directly facing us, giving Webb the perfect view of these arms and their structure. The telescope’s detectors are particularly good at detecting all the fine filaments of gas and dust.

You can still hear Jonathan’s Discovery program for the BBC World Service in which he discusses the Webb project with its leading scientists and engineers.