A nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. roughly 7,600 light-years away.

Thousands of galaxies in cluster SMACS 0723 – overflowing with details. Over 13 billion light years distant, every light is a galaxy. This is a follow-up to the Hubble Deep Field

A new era in astronomy began as the world gets its first look at the full capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope – the first images. It’s a million miles from Earth and ready to deliver fresh science on stars, planets, and galaxies near and far.

Stephan’s Quintet, a visual grouping of five galaxies, was featured in the holiday classic, “It’s a Wonderful Life.” It’s a close look at galaxies interacting and merging almost 300 million light years away

The JWST specializes in infrared light, revealing millions of stars and key details in planets and clouds that are impossible to see from Earth’s surface.

New star visible in the right image. This side-by-side comparison shows observations of the Southern Ring Nebula in near-infrared light, at left, and mid-infrared light, at right, from NASA’s Webb Telescope. This scene was created by a white dwarf star – the remains of a star like our Sun after it shed its outer layers and stopped burning fuel though nuclear fusion. Those outer layers now form the ejected shells all along this view. The brighter star in both images hasn’t yet shed its layers. The second star clearly appears in the MIRI image, because this instrument can see the gleaming dust around cloud it.
JWST captured the distinct light signature of water, along with evidence for clouds and haze, in the atmosphere surrounding a hot, puffy gas giant 1000 ly away

Many of these images are composites of 1K smaller images that NASA AI can seamlessly join in a mosaic. The colors are chosen to make details pop, the light JWST sees is everywhere, but invisible to human eyes.

Hubble is amazing in visible light (left), while on the right JWST shows more detail in dusty infrared


Startling new insights could stream in quickly as research begins on every scale in our universe. From nearby to almost 14 billion light years distant. The first images are historic, and just the beginning.

Learn about the mission here.

HD versions of all images are here.

Some folks are already making funny memes – a different kind of discovery!

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David Raiklen

David Raiklen wrote, directed and scored his first film at age 9. He began studying keyboard and composing at age 5. He attended, then taught at UCLA, USC and CalArts. Among his teachers are John Williams and Mel Powel.
He has worked for Fox, Disney and Sprint. David has received numerous awards for his work, including the 2004 American Music Center Award. Dr. Raiklen has composed music and sound design for theater (Death and the Maiden), dance (Russian Ballet), television (Sing Me a Story), cell phone (Spacey Movie), museums (Museum of Tolerance), concert (Violin Sonata ), and film (Appalachian Trail).
His compositions have been performed at the Hollywood Bowl and the first Disney Hall. David Raiken is also host of a successful radio program, Classical Fan Club.