NASA is celebrating the one-year anniversary of the James Webb Space Telescope’s entry into service by releasing a breathtaking image of a small star-forming region in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. The image, captured in infrared light, showcases star birth in unprecedented detail and texture. 

The Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex is the closest star-forming region to Earth, and the James Webb Space Telescope’s position at the second LaGrange Point, a million miles from Earth, means there is no light pollution to dilute its imagery. 

Over the past year, the telescope has made a number of important discoveries and snapped incredible photographs. Within our solar system, the telescope has gathered exquisite data on Saturn’s atmosphere, recorded a 6,000-mile plume of water erupting from the surface of Enceladus, and captured details of Jupiter’s minuscule rings and aurorae. 

Outside our solar system, the telescope has taken stunning images of the oldest galaxies ever found, created just 500 million years after the Big Bang, and lent a hand to a European effort to study X-ray light in the universe. 

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson praised the James Webb Space Telescope for transforming humanity’s view of the cosmos, saying that it “empowers scientists around the globe to ask and answer questions they once could never dream of.” The telescope has certainly delivered on its promise of revealing the universe like never before.