NASA marks James Webb Space Telescope anniversary with image of star birth

July 12 (UPI) -- To mark the one-year anniversary of the James Webb Space Telescope, NASA released a high-quality image Wednesday of a star forming region in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex.

The star-forming region in the image is about 390 light-years away, making it the closest star-forming region to Earth.

According to NASA, the "image shows a region containing approximately 50 young stars, all of them similar in mass to the Sun, or smaller. The darkest areas are the densest, where thick dust cocoons still-forming protostars."

The image also shows red jets of molecular hydrogen, which form when a new star breaks out of its natal cosmic dust envelope.

Though most of the stars shown in the image are of similar mass to our own sun, one of the stars, dubbed S1, is significantly larger than the rest.

Some of the stars in the region are surrounded by shadows that indicate they have formed protoplanetary disks, which often form into planets.

"Webb's image of Rho Ophiuchi allows us to witness a very brief period in the stellar lifecycle with new clarity. Our own Sun experienced a phase like this, long ago, and now we have the technology to see the beginning of another star's story," said Webb project scientist Klaus Pontoppidan of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.

Last July, U.S. President Joe Biden unveiled the first of a set of full color images from the James Webb Space Telescope.

The image showed a "deep field" of stars, which NASA said was the deepest infrared image taken up to that point.

"In just one year, the James Webb Space Telescope has transformed humanity's view of the cosmos, peering into dust clouds and seeing light from faraway corners of the universe for the very first time. Every new image is a new discovery, empowering scientists around the globe to ask and answer questions they once could never dream of," said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson.