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PHOENIX - In December 2021, NASA launched the James Webb Space Telescope – NASA's flagship space observatory.
"It has this enormous 21-foot-across gold mirror that looks at the universe in a way that we've never been able to do before," said Dr. Kevin Hainline with the University of Arizona.
On it is the main camera or Near Infrared Camera (NIRCam), designed and built by UArizona.
"We've been working for many, many years, in some cases decades, to make sure that when this camera was turned on with the rest of the telescope, that it could deliver the quality of images we've been seeing over the past year from JWST," Hainline said.
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James Webb Space Telescope: 1 year later
One year ago, we began getting some remarkable new images of the final frontier. The James Webb Space Telescope began showing us outer space in greater details than ever before. FOX 10s Lindsey Ragas reports.
Hainline, an assistant research professor at UArizona, says Nircam helps scientists look at early stars and galaxies through pictures.
"So for the last year, there have been observing all manner of things in the universe," he said. "They've been looking at the planets and our solar system. There's incredible images of Uranus, Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune."
One year after the first picture was released, NASA shared this.
"What we're seeing here, is we're seeing this complex, a group of clouds where baby stars are being born," Hainline said "This is something that JWST does really well, is look inside of these incredibly dense, dusty environments to explore how stars are formed."
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Methyl cation was found in a young star system with the protoplanetary disk d203-506, located about 1,350 light-years away in the Orion Nebula.
Hainline says when a star is born, it's surrounded by gas.
"When that light appears inside the gas cloud, it starts pushing the gas away making these big bubbles," he said. "When you look at this image, you can see these regions, these bubbles that are being formed as the star pushes all the gas away."
Hainline says the mission was designed for five to 10 years, but because of how well the telescope launched, it saved enough fuel so that it can stay in its orbit for about 20 years.