JWST celebrates its first year in space with this stunning picture of our universe

A year ago, on July 12, 2022, the NASANASAI’ESAESA The Canadian Space Agency unveiled the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) that ushered in a new era of astronomy. Since then, this observatory has kept all its promises, giving us a visionbeingbeing I’ve never seen him. Whatever areas of astronomy were studied and what instruments were used (he has four), discoveries and scientific developments were numerous and exceeded expectations.

Rich knowledge of the universe

Throughout this first year of use, JWST has undoubtedly pushed the boundaries of knowledge by exploring key research areas.

Through his observations, he contributed to our understanding of the formation and evolution of galaxies, the birth of starsstarsfeatures outer planetsouter planets And theirs ambianceambianceAs well as the first and first stars black holesblack holes Universe. James Webb’s spectroscopic instruments played an important role. They made it possible to disclose detailed information about the configuration, and a movementa movement and the history of many things, thus opening up new horizons for astronomical research.

An area rich in the formation of planetary systems

Today, the three partner space agencies to telescopetelescope Reveal the image they chose to celebrate this anniversary. It is a small region of star formation in a complex cloudsclouds From Rho Ophiuchi where there are about 50 young stars, all of them MassMass is similar to sunsun or smaller. The darkest regions correspond to the dense regions where starsstars in cocoonscocoons thick dust. This picture is dominated by dazzling flows of molecular hydrogen from colorcolor Red, visible horizontally in the upper third and vertically to the right of the image. These jets occur when stars form EmergingEmerging For the first time from their dust envelope, creating a pair of opposing jets that ripple through space. The star that carves out the luminous cavity visible in the lower half of the image is S1. It is the only star in the image that is much larger than the Sun.

Some of the stars shown in the image show shadows that indicate the presence of Protoplanetary disksProtoplanetary disksPlanetary systems in potential formation. Inside, it can be assumed that many planets are forming.