Side-by-side images from the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes show why NASA spent 25 years and $10 billion on the Webb

• NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is by far the most powerful observatory ever launched into space.
• Even Webb’s very first images show why NASA spent 25 years and $10 billion.
• The Hubble Space Telescope captured the same sights, but JWST revealed details that were invisible.

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope floored astronomers and spectators across the globe when it released its first full-color images.

Even the scientists who worked on the telescope were taken aback when they saw those first snapshots in the summer of 2022, telling reporters that they sobbed, fell speechless, or dropped their jaws so far that they “nearly broke.”

The telescope — called Webb or JWST for short — has continued to wow the world with new discoveries and mesmerizing portraits of the universe.

It has investigated distant planets that could be habitable, spotted the oldest black hole ever, and peered into the universe’s ancient dark ages, giving astronomers answers in some cases and raising new mysteries in others.

“We’re making discoveries, and we really haven’t even started trying yet,” Eric Smith, the chief scientist of NASA’s astrophysics division, said in a 2022 briefing where the Webb team revealed its first images.

Indeed, these pictures were only warm-ups for the years of science ahead. Here’s what they revealed.

JWST clearly showed two stars at the center of this nebula, where Hubble only saw one

This image, captured in near-infrared wavelengths of light, shows the structure of the nebula. The blue bubble at the center is hot, ionized gas that the leftover core of the star has superheated. In the foamy orange outer regions made of newly formed hydrogen, rays of the starlight beam through holes in the inner bubble.

A cluster of five galaxies was much sharper through JWST’s lens

Webb is 100 times stronger than Hubble, capturing far more galaxies than its predecessor could.

The JWST image also revealed the stellar nurseries created as galaxies merge

And this is JWST’s image of the same region

“This is going to be revolutionary,” Jane Rigby, a NASA scientist overseeing JWST operations, said in the briefing. “These are incredible capabilities that we’ve never had before.”

Indeed, Webb has been revolutionary in the two years since. There are still more discoveries to come.

This story was originally published on July 12, 2022, and most recently updated on September 23, 2024.