This did not occur by chance. The Hubble Space Telescope can only detect objects that are one-hundredth as dim as those detected by the James Webb Telescope, a collaboration between the United States, Canada, and Europe led by NASA. Images of distant galaxies at the beginning of time and breathtaking landscapes of nebulae, the dusty birthplaces of stars, began pouring down almost immediately after it began full operations in July of 2022.

It’s as potent, if not more so, than we anticipated. A year later, JWST is still sending back massive amounts of data to astronomers on Earth, who are awestruck by its potential to revolutionize our knowledge of the cosmos.