NASA Webb Telescope

Four years of Webb science! And what a time it has been! We've learned so much about our universe and ourselves. Here are some of our favorite images and most interesting science results!

And to round out four years of history-making science, we're celebrating 2026 and what we've learned so far. From far away and very old "Little Red Dots" to new views of Saturn's sunlit surface, 2026 is shaping up to be another incredible year of science!

In 2025, we looked back in time! Abell S1063 was Webb's deepest look back on a single target as of 2025. Webb discovered a new moon around Uranus and examined the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 e spectrum, a system with many rocket planets, including some in its habitable zone. We also saw the Red Spider planetary nebula, Sagittarius B2 molecular cloud, and Barred spiral Galaxy NGC 2283.

Four years of Webb science! And what a time it has been! We've learned so much about our universe and ourselves. Here are some of our favorite images and most interesting science results!

In 2025, we looked back in time! Abell S1063 was Webb's deepest look back on a single target as of 2025. Webb discovered a new moon around Uranus and examined the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 e spectrum, a system with many rocket planets, including some in its habitable zone. We also saw the Red Spider planetary nebula, Sagittarius B2 molecular cloud, and Barred spiral Galaxy NGC 2283.

New views of familiar sights in 2024. Webb showed us a new map of Jupiter's Great Red Spot using the telescope's Integral Field Unit on the NIRSpec instrument. Webb also teamed up with Chandra X-Ray Observatory to show us a new view of the Crab Nebula, which was first documented a thousand years before in 1024! Webb also viewed Spiral galaxies IC 2163 and NGC 2207, Westerlund 1 (one of the closest super star clusters) and imaged Epsilon Indi Ab, the coldest, most Jupiter-like exoplanet to be imaged so far.

The gravity of this cluster is so strong that it can bend and focus light like a magnifying glass; the prominent orange, stretched-out arcs alongside each sub-cluster are images of distant background galaxies. esawebb.org/images/potm260…

Each sub-cluster is anchored on a bright, massive elliptical galaxy - the two brightest points in the center, with the largest glowing halos around them. Smaller white elliptical galaxies are bound to one of them by gravity, and will be incorporated into the final galaxy cluster.

Galaxy cluster formation is a messy process! Webb captured the formation of this young galaxy cluster in progress. Its two-sub-clusters have slammed through each other and travelled over a million light-years apart, repeating this process until they finally merge.

This combined view of Centaurus A from Webb in near and mid-infrared exposes a warped disk of gas and dust left behind by a collision with another galaxy billions of years ago. The grainy glow is actually a dense field of millions of individually resolved stars.

Many of the glowing red points in the MIRI image are dust-rich stars or stellar nurseries. Dust is a raw ingredient for new stars and planets and vital to the ongoing life cycle of the galaxy. At the heart of the galaxy, an actively feeding supermassive black hole shines brightly, surrounded by complex structures sculpted by a past galactic collision and ongoing activity.

July 12th is Webb’s 4th science anniversary! When we dive deeper into the familiar galaxy Centaurus A, our view becomes richer and stranger— a vivid record of cosmic history. go.nasa.gov/4wvZJYr

Though dust obscures background stars and galaxies, in @NASAHubble’s image of FS Tau (right) we can see protostar FS Tau b, its dusty protoplanetary disk, and its jet of matter (colored cyan). Compare to the Webb image on the left!

Gonna shine across that sky 🎶 In the infrared, Webb reveals bright protostars flowering from within the thick dust of the FS Tau star system. Set against a tapestry of background galaxies, this star-forming nebula is home to baby stars. science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/…