27 jaw-dropping images from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope show its first year peering into the cosmos

The James Webb Space Telescope has been snapping gorgeous pictures of deep space for a year now.

The telescope uses infrared light, allowing it to peer past clouds of dust and gas in deep space.

Webb is about 100 times more powerful than NASA's previous landmark space observatory, Hubble.

That's why Webb can peer deeper into space — and further back in time — than any prior telescope. Its first deep-field image (shown here) reveals some of the earliest galaxies in the universe.

By gathering infrared light, Webb is able to cut through cosmic dust and see far into the past, to the first 400 million years after the Big Bang.

The telescope's power was evident in its first images in July 2022. This one shows the Southern Ring Nebula, a giant cloud of dust and gas 2,000 light-years away from Earth.

One of Webb's most popular early images sheds new light on the iconic Pillars of Creation — giant clouds of gas and dust that constantly birth new stars.

In near-infrared light, thousands of stars burst through, including newborn red stars. Compare that to Hubble's version, on the left below.

In mid-infrared, the dust itself takes center stage.

By combining the data from the two Webb images, NASA rendered a completely new, ethereal portrait of the pillars.

In the year since those first images, Webb has not disappointed. This galaxy is 32 million light-years away from Earth.

This close-up of a galaxy 17 million light-years away shows thousands of stars.

Tendrils of star-forming regions connect the cores of these two merging galaxies and make them much brighter in infrared.

This giant galaxy shows the aftermath of such a merger. Red and orange regions show young stars created by the compression of gases as two galaxies squished themselves into one.

Webb has also pivoted to focus on our solar system, blowing astronomers away with this eerie infrared portrait of Jupiter.

The telescope also captured the faint rings circling Jupiter and auroras glowing at its poles.

Jupiter's moon Europa shined brilliantly in Webb's infrared. Scientists think Europa has a saltwater ocean, deep below its thick ice crust, which could harbor alien life.

Webb even spotted Neptune's rings, which are a rare sight.

It's the best view of the planet's dusty rings since NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft flew by Neptune in 1989.

The new image also shows seven of Neptune's 14 known moons. The bright blue feature that looks like a star is actually Neptune's largest moon, Triton.

The infrared telescope also took images of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. It's the only moon in our solar system that has a dense atmosphere — four times denser than Earth's.

Most recently, Webb captured Saturn itself. The planet's icy rings shine bright in infrared, while its methane atmosphere absorbs most of the sunlight.

Webb captured NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft successfully slamming into the asteroid Dimorphos, as part of the first-ever planetary defense test.

Webb combined its infrared powers with the Chandra X-ray Observatory to capture distant galaxies in two types of light that are invisible to the human eye.

NASA experts map the infrared and x-ray data into colors the human eye can see.

In this image, for example, Webb reveals plumes of gas and dust that newborn stars feed on. Chandra shows the remains of a supernova explosion — the purple burst on the left.

In just one year of scientific operations, Webb has captured dozens of dazzling shots of the cosmos.

This is just the beginning for NASA's most powerful telescope.

This post has been updated. It was originally published December 25, 2022.