NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, J. Lee (STScI), T. Williams (Oxford), PHANGS Team
This Webb image shows a densely populated spiral galaxy anchored by a central region that has a light blue haze, known NGC 628. It's 32 million light-years away in the constellation Pisces.
NASA/ESA/CSA/ STScI
In this new image of Uranus, the planet shines shine brightly, along with its many rings and moons.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
The James Webb Space Telescope's shot of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A shows elaborate details visible for the first time.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
There are approximately 500,000 stars in this image of the Sagittarius C region of the Milky Way. The bright cyan area contains emissions from ionized hydrogen.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
Galaxy cluster MACS0416 is seen here in exquisite detail thanks to a composite image created with data from both NASA's James Webb and Hubble space telescopes.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Tea Temim
Scientists are hoping to gain more information about the origins of the Crab Nebula, thanks to new details spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope.
ESA/Webb/NASA/CSA
This image shows the Ring Nebula in exceptional detail, like the filament elements in the ring's inner section.
NASA/ESA/CSA
Earendel, the most distant star ever discovered, can be seen in this image of the Sunrise Arc galaxy.
NASA/ESA/CSA/JWST Ring Nebula Team
The Ring Nebula is seen in breathtaking detail, in a composite image released on August 4.
J. DePasquale/CSA/ESA/NASA
The James Webb Space Telescope captured a high-resolution image of a pair of actively forming stars called Herbig-Haro 46/47. The stellar duo, only a few thousand years old, is located at the center of the red diffraction spikes.
NASA/ESA/CSA/Klaus Pontoppidan, STScI
The James Webb Space Telescope captured a detailed closeup of the birth of sunlike stars in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud, the closest star-forming region located 390 light-years from Earth. The young stars release jets that cause the surrounding gas to glow. The image's release marks the first anniversary of Webb's observations of the cosmos.
NASA
Saturn and its moons were captured by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope June 25. The image shows details of the planet's atmosphere and ring system.
ESA/Webb/NASA/CSA
The James Webb Space Telescope captured the Orion Bar, a part of the Orion Nebula that is being eroded by stellar radiation emanating from the Trapezium Cluster.
NASA/ESA/CSA
This composite image, shot from the James Webb Space Telescope's MIRI and NIRCam instruments, shows the bright clusters of stars and dust from barred spiral galaxy NGC 5068.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
Webb captured a burst of star formation triggered by two colliding spiral galaxies called Arp 220. The phenomenon is the closest ultra-luminous galactic merger to Earth.
NASA/ESA/CSA/A. Pagan/A. Gáspár
Dusty rings surround Fomalhaut, a young star outside of our solar system that's 25 light-years from Earth.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Webb ERO Production Team
The Wolf-Rayet star WR 124 was one of the James Webb Space Telescope's first discoveries, spotted in June 2022.
NASA/ESA/CSA/D. D. Milisavljevic/T. Temim/I. De Looze
Stunning details can be seen in this Webb telescope photo of supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, which is 11,000 light-years from Earth.
Space Telescope Science Institut/STScI
Webb's image of ice giant Uranus shows off the planet's incredible rings and a bright haze covering its north polar cap (right). A bright cloud lies at the cap's edge and a second one is seen at left.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
The James Webb Space Telescope captured 50,000 sources of near-infrared light in a new image of Pandora's Cluster, a megacluster of galaxies. The cluster acts like a magnifying glass, allowing astronomers to see more distant galaxies behind it.
NASA/ESA/CSA
Stars shine through the hazy material of the Chamaeleon I dark molecular cloud, which is 630 light-years away from Earth.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/A. Pagan
The James Webb Space Telescope spotted NGC 346, one of the most dynamic star-forming regions near the Milky Way, located in a dwarf galaxy called the Small Magellanic Cloud.
NASA/ESA
Two galaxies, known as II ZW96, form a swirl shape while merging in the constellation Delphinus.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
The James Webb Space Telescope revealed features of a new protostar forming.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
The James Webb Space Telescope captured a new perspective of the Pillars of Creation in mid-infrared light. The dust of this star-forming region, rather than the stars themselves, is the highlight, and resembles ghostly figures.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
Webb captured a highly detailed snapshot of the so-called Pillars of Creation, a vista of three looming towers made of interstellar dust and gas that's speckled with newly formed stars. The area, which lies within the Eagle Nebula about 6,500 light-years from Earth, had previously been captured by the Hubble Telescope in 1995, creating an image deemed "iconic" by space observers.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/JPL-Caltech
The two stars in WR140 produce shells of dust every eight years that look like rings, as captured by the Webb telescope.
NASA/ESA/CSA/ASU/UA/UM/JWST PEARLs Team
The James Webb Space Telescope and Hubble Space Telescope contributed to this image of galactic pair VV 191. Webb observed the brighter elliptical galaxy (left) and spiral galaxy (right) in near-infrared light, and Hubble collected data in visible and ultraviolet light.
ESA/NASA/CSA/J. Lee
The James Webb Space Telescope captured spiral galaxy IC 5332, which is over 29 million light-years away. The observatory's MIRI instrument peered through interstellar dust to see the galaxy's "bones."
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
Webb captured the clearest view of the Neptune's rings in over 30 years.
NASA/ESA/CSA/PDRS4all
The inner region of the Orion Nebula as seen by the telescope's NIRCam instrument. The image reveals intricate details about how stars and planetary systems are formed.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/Webb ERO Production Team
NASA released a mosaic image of the Tarantula Nebula on Tuesday, September 6. The image, which spans 340 light-years, shows tens of thousands of young stars that were previously obscured by cosmic dust.
NASA/ESA
A new image of the Phantom Galaxy, which is 32 million light-years away from Earth, combines data from the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope.
NASA/ESA/CSA/Jupiter ERS Team
NASA released an image of Jupiter on Monday, August 22, that shows the planet's famous Great Red Spot appearing white.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
The James Webb Space Telescope captured the Cartwheel galaxy, which is around 500 million light-years away, in a photo released by NASA on August 2.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
Webb's landscape-like view, called "Cosmic Cliffs," is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. The telescope's infrared view reveals previously invisible areas of star birth.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
The five galaxies of Stephan's Quintet can be seen here in a new light. The galaxies appear to dance with one another, showcasing how these interactions can drive galactic evolution.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
This side-by-side comparison shows observations of the Southern Ring Nebula in near-infrared light, left, and mid-infrared light, right, from NASA's Webb telescope. The Southern Ring Nebula is 2,000 light-years away from Earth. This large planetary nebula includes an expanding cloud of gas around a dying star, as well as a secondary star earlier on in its evolution.
NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI
President Joe Biden released one of Webb's first images on July 11, and it's "the deepest and sharpest infrared image of the distant universe to date," according to NASA. The image shows SMACS 0723, where a massive group of galaxy clusters act as a magnifying glass for the objects behind them. Called gravitational lensing, this created Webb's first deep field view of incredibly old and distant, faint galaxies.

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The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted a rare and tumultuous sight 15,000 light-years away from Earth.

The space observatory captured a scintillating image of a Wolf-Rayet star called WR 124 in the Sagittarius constellation. Wolf-Rayet stars are some of the most luminous and massive stars in the universe.

Some stars briefly become a Wolf-Rayet before they explode in a supernova, so it’s rare for astronomers to spot them.

The big, bright stars burn through their fuel, like hydrogen over a few hundred thousand years — which is a short time, astronomically speaking. The stars release their outer layers in rings of gas and dust. Then, they explode.

The Webb telescope glimpsed WR 124 during some of its first scientific observations in June 2022. The new image, released by NASA on Tuesday at the South by Southwest Conference in Austin, Texas, reveals unprecedented details in infrared light, which is invisible to the human eye.

NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI/JPL-Caltech
Initial processing of the Webb WR 140 data included eight bright "spikes" of light emanating from the center of the image. These are not features of the system, but so- called artifacts of the telescope itself. They were removed from the image, in order to give viewers an unobscured view of the source object.

Webb telescope spies an unusual set of nested dust rings in space

The star, surrounded by a halo of glowing gas and dust, shines at the center of the image.

The Wolf-Rayet star observed by Webb is 30 times the mass of our sun, which has a mass of about 333,000 Earths. So far, WR 124 has shed about 10 suns’ worth of material, creating the cool, glowing gas and cosmic dust seen in the image.

On Earth, dust is regarded as an annoyance that needs to be cleaned up. But cosmic dust across the universe swirls together with gas to form stars, planets and the very building blocks of life.

Astronomers are trying to understand why there is more dust in the universe than their theories can explain, and tools like the Webb telescope could shed new light on this astronomical ingredient.

The observatory can both see and see through dust using its observational capabilities in infrared wavelengths of light, including the brightness of the WR 124 star, the details of the gas surrounding it and the clumpy structure of the ejected stellar material in the halo.

ESO/M. Kornmesser
This artist's impression shows NGP--190387, a star-forming, dusty galaxy that is so far away its light has taken over 12 billion years to reach us.  ALMA observations have revealed the presence of fluorine in the gas clouds of NGP--190387. To date, this is the most distant detection of the element in a star-forming galaxy, one that we see as it was only 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang — about 10% of the current age of the Universe. The discovery sheds a new light on how  stars forge fluorine, suggesting short-lived stars known as Wolf--Rayet are its most likely birthplace.

Element found in our teeth detected for the first time in galaxy 12 billion light-years away

Studying stars like WR 124 with Webb helps astronomers understand what happened in the early days of the universe, when dying stars exploded and released heavy elements that ended up on Earth and inside our own bodies.

“At the end of a star’s life, they shed their outer layers out into the rest of the universe,” said Dr. Amber Straughn, astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Deputy Project Scientist for the Webb telescope’s science communications, at the conference.

“I think this is one of the most beautiful concepts in all of astronomy. This is Carl Sagan’s stardust concept, the fact that the iron in your blood and the calcium in your bones was literally forged inside of a star that exploded billions of years ago. And that’s what we’re seeing in this new image. That dust is spreading out into the cosmos and will eventually create planets. And this is how we got here, in fact.”