CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The Webb Space Telescope is celebrating its first year of capturing cosmic photographs with an impressive close-up image of dozens of newborn stars.
NASA unveiled the latest snapshot on Wednesday, revealing 50 young stars in a cloud complex located 390 light-years away. This region is relatively calm but filled with illuminated gases, hydrogen jets, and even dust cocoons with the delicate beginnings of additional stars.
All of these young stars are similar in size to our own sun. Scientists stated that this breathtaking image offers the clearest observation to date of the initial phase of a star’s lifecycle.
“Our sun experienced a similar phase long ago, and now we have the technology to witness the birth of another star,” said Klaus Pontoppidan, project scientist.
This cloud complex, known as Rho Ophiuchi, is the closest region to Earth where stars are forming. According to NASA, the absence of foreground stars in the photo allows the details to stand out even more. Some of the stars in the image exhibit shadows that suggest the potential presence of forming planets.
The Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful observatory ever launched into space, has been capturing stunning images for the past year. The first pictures from this $10 billion infrared telescope were released in July of last year, six months after its launch from French Guiana.
The Webb Telescope is considered the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, which has been orbiting Earth for 33 years. Webb, a collaborative effort between NASA and the European Space Agency, scans the universe from a distance of 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away.
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