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Rho Ophiuchi (NIRCam Image)

Red dual opposing jets coming from young stars fill the darker top half of the image, while a glowing pale-yellow, cave-like structure is bottom center, tilted toward two o’clock, with a bright star at its center. The dust of the cave structure becomes wispy toward eight o’clock. Above the arched top of the dust cave three groupings of stars with diffraction spikes are arranged. A dark cloud sits at the top of the arch of the glowing dust cave, with one streamer curling down the right-hand side. The dark shadow of the cloud appears pinched in the center, with light emerging in a triangle shape above and below the pinch, revealing the presence of a star inside the dark cloud. The image’s largest jets of red material emanate from within this dark cloud, thick and displaying structure like the rough face of a cliff, glowing brighter at the edges. At the top center of the image, a star displays another, larger pinched dark shadow, this time vertically. To the left of this star is a more wispy, indistinct region.

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. It is a relatively small, quiet stellar nursery, but you’d never know it from Webb’s chaotic close-up. 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. 

The young stars at the center of many of these disks are similar in mass to the Sun, or smaller. The heftiest in this image is the star S1, which appears amid a glowing cave it is carving out with its stellar winds in the lower half of the image. The lighter-colored gas surrounding S1 consists of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, a family of carbon-based molecules that are among the most common compounds found in space. 

For more detail on what is happening where in Webb’s image of Rho Ophiuchi, watch the video tour and read the press release.

Extended Description and Image Alt Text

Extended Description

An active star-forming region. Red dual opposing jets coming from young stars fill the darker top half of the image, while a glowing pale-yellow, cave-like structure is bottom center, tilted toward two o’clock, with a bright star at its center. The dust of the cave structure becomes wispy toward eight o’clock, trailing off and allowing stars and distant galaxies to show through.

Above the arched top of the dust cave three groupings of stars with diffraction spikes are arranged. Smaller stars are scattered around the image. A dark cloud sits at the top of the arch of the glowing dust cave, with one streamer curling down the right-hand side. The dark shadow of the cloud appears pinched in the center, with light emerging in a triangle shape above and below the pinch, revealing the presence of a star inside the dark cloud.

The image’s largest jets of red material emanate from within this dark cloud, thick and displaying structure like the rough face of a cliff, glowing brighter at the edges. At the top center of the image, a star displays another, larger pinched dark shadow, this time vertically. To the left of this star is a more wispy, indistinct region, like this star is also beginning to clear out space around itself like the one at the center of the dusty cave below. 

Image Alt Text

Red dual opposing jets coming from young stars fill the darker top half of the image, while a glowing pale-yellow, cave-like structure is bottom center, tilted toward two o’clock, with a bright star at its center. The dust of the cave structure becomes wispy toward eight o’clock. Above the arched top of the dust cave three groupings of stars with diffraction spikes are arranged. A dark cloud sits at the top of the arch of the glowing dust cave, with one streamer curling down the right-hand side. The dark shadow of the cloud appears pinched in the center, with light emerging in a triangle shape above and below the pinch, revealing the presence of a star inside the dark cloud. The image’s largest jets of red material emanate from within this dark cloud, thick and displaying structure like the rough face of a cliff, glowing brighter at the edges. At the top center of the image, a star displays another, larger pinched dark shadow, this time vertically. To the left of this star is a more wispy, indistinct region.

About the Object

  • R.A. Position
    R.A. PositionRight ascension – analogous to longitude – is one component of an object's position.
    16:26:30.56
  • Dec. Position
    Dec. PositionDeclination – analogous to latitude – is one component of an object's position.
    -24:23:04.16
  • Constellation
    ConstellationOne of 88 recognized regions of the celestial sphere in which the object appears.
    Ophiuchus
  • Distance
    DistanceThe physical distance from Earth to the astronomical object. Distances within our solar system are usually measured in Astronomical Units (AU). Distances between stars are usually measured in light-years. Interstellar distances can also be measured in parsecs.
    390 light-years away
  • Dimensions
    DimensionsThe physical size of the object or the apparent angle it subtends on the sky.
    Image is about 0.7 light-years across (6.4 arcminutes)

About the Data

  • Data Description
    Data DescriptionProposal: A description of the observations, their scientific justification, and the links to the data available in the science archive.
    Science Team: The astronomers who planned the observations and analyzed the data. "PI" refers to the Principal Investigator.

    This image was created with Webb data from proposal: 2739 (K. Pontoppidan)

  • Instrument
    InstrumentThe science instrument used to produce the data.
    NIRCam
  • Exposure Dates
    Exposure DatesThe date(s) that the telescope made its observations and the total exposure time.
    07 March 2023, 4-6 April 2023
  • Filters
    FiltersThe camera filters that were used in the science observations.
    F187N, F200W, F335W, F444W, F470N
  • Object Name
    Object NameA name or catalog number that astronomers use to identify an astronomical object.
    Rho Ophiuchi
  • Object Description
    Object DescriptionThe type of astronomical object.
    Star-forming region
  • Release Date
    July 12, 2023
  • Science Release
    Webb Celebrates First Year of Science With Close-up on Birth of Sun-like Stars
    Read the release
  • Credit
    Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI); Image Processing: Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

Downloads

  • Full Res (For Display), 12778 × 11968
    png (135 MB)
  • Full Res (For Print), 12778 × 11968
    tif (132.72 MB)
  • 2000 × 1873
    png (4.02 MB)
Red dual opposing jets coming from young stars fill the darker top half of the image, while a glowing pale-yellow, cave-like structure is bottom center, tilted toward two o’clock, with a bright star at its center. The dust of the cave structure becomes wispy toward eight o’clock. Above the arched top of the dust cave three groupings of stars with diffraction spikes are arranged. A dark cloud sits at the top of the arch of the glowing dust cave, with one streamer curling down the right-hand side. The dark shadow of the cloud appears pinched in the center, with light emerging in a triangle shape above and below the pinch, revealing the presence of a star inside the dark cloud. The image’s largest jets of red material emanate from within this dark cloud, thick and displaying structure like the rough face of a cliff, glowing brighter at the edges. At the top center of the image, a star displays another, larger pinched dark shadow, this time vertically. To the left of this star is a more wispy, indistinct region.
Color Info
Color InfoA brief description of the methods used to convert telescope data into the color image being presented.

These images are a composite of separate exposures acquired by the James Webb Space Telescope using the NIRCam instrument. Several filters were used to sample wide and narrow wavelength ranges. The color results from assigning different hues (colors) to each monochromatic (grayscale) image associated with an individual filter. In this case, the assigned colors are:   Blue: F187N, Light Blue: F200W, Cyan: F335W, Yellow: F444W, Red: F470N

Compass and Scale
Compass and ScaleAn astronomical image with a scale that shows how large an object is on the sky, a compass that shows how the object is oriented on the sky, and the filters with which the image was made.

Related Images & Videos

Black header across the top of the image with text reading James Webb Space Telescope, Rho Ophiuchi. At the bottom left are compass arrows indicating the orientation of the image on the sky. The north arrow points in the 9 o’clock direction. The east arrow points toward 6 o’clock. At the lower right is a scale bar labeled 0.1 light-years. The length of the scale bar is one-seventh the total width of the image. Below the image is a color key showing which NIRCam filters were used to create the image and which visible-light color is assigned to each filter. From left to right, filter F187N is dark blue; F200W is pale blue; F335W is blue-green; F444W is yellow; F470N is red.

Rho Ophiuchi (NIRCam Compass Image)

Image of star formation in the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, with compass arrows, scale bar, and color key for reference. The north and east compass arrows show the orientation of the image on the sky. Note that the relationship between north and east on the sky (as seen from...

Telescope image including distant stars and the dark, dusty arm of a galaxy are overlaid with semi-transparent graphics representing the constellations Scorpius, as a scorpion bug, on the right and Ophiuchus, showing a man's legs to the upper left. Thin blue lines connect the actual stars of the constellations.

Zoom in to Rho Ophiuchi

Travel to the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex. The journey begins with a ground-based image by astrophotographer Akira Fujii, then transitions into a plate from the Digitized Sky Survey. Next a two-color image from the now-retired infrared NASA Spitzer Space Telescope appears, and...

A glowing cave-like structure in shades of yellow, orange, and light green. Vertical curtains of material drape the left side of the image. At right, dark swaths of dust line the edge of the cave. At far right are hints of red.

Rho Ophiuchi Video Tour

This video tours a portion of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex, the closest star-forming region to Earth. The image was taken to celebrate the first anniversary of the start of science operations for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Jets bursting from young stars crisscross the...

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Details

Last Updated
Aug 28, 2025
Contact
Media

Laura Betz
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, Maryland
laura.e.betz@nasa.gov

Image Credit

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Klaus Pontoppidan (STScI)

Image Processing Credit

Alyssa Pagan (STScI)

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