(NewsNation) — Christmas marked one year since NASA launched the James Webb space telescope.
In that short time, it’s already transformed astronomy with crystal clear snapshots of stars, galaxies, and nebulas light years away. This includes striking new images of the famous Pillars of Creation, which were first captured by the Hubble telescope in 1995.
Jose Hernandez, a former NASA astronaut, said the Webb is helping astronauts understand more about the universe.
“We’re learning how the universe has been created,” Hernandez said, adding that Webb compliments past space telescopes.
“We’ve had Hubble up there for over 31 years and we’ve been able to peer deep into space, up to what’s considered about 400 million years since the Big Bang occurred,” he added. “This telescope is getting us even close to that point of the big bang 200 million years.”
According to NASA, Webb’s launch put in on a trajectory into a halo orbit around the second Lagrange point. The approximately one-million-mile journey takes about one month.