Rho Ophiuchi – NIRCam

2023-07-12 - The first anniversary image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope displays star birth like it's never been seen before, full of detailed, impressionistic texture. The subject is the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. Jets bursting from young stars crisscross the image, impacting the surrounding interstellar gas and lighting up molecular hydrogen, shown in red. Some stars display the telltale shadow of a circumstellar disk, the makings of future planetary systems. (Credits: NASA, ESA, Canadian Space Agency, STScI, K.Pontoppidan (STScI), Image processing: A. Pagan (STScI))