The cosmic cliffs of a stellar nursery, a quintet of galaxies bound in a  celestial dance: the James Webb Space Telescope released its next wave of images on July 12, heralding a new era of astronomy.

"Every image is a new discovery," said NASA administrator Bill Nelson.  "Each will give humanity a view of the universe that we've never seen  before."

Released one by one, the new images demonstrated the full power of the  $10 billion observatory, which uses infrared cameras to gaze into the  distant universe in unprecedented clarity.

This image released by NASA on July 12, 2022, shows Stephan’s  Quintet captured by the James Webb Space Telescope, a visual grouping of  five galaxies, in a new light.

This enormous mosaic is JWST’s largest image to date, covering about one-fifth of the Moon’s diameter.

It contains over 150 million pixels and is constructed from almost 1,000 separate image files. Photo: NASA via AFP

The “Cosmic Cliffs” of the Carina Nebula is seen in an image divided  horizontally by an undulating line between a cloudscape forming a  nebula along the bottom portion and a comparatively clear upper portion,  with data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

In this comparison image released by NASA, shows invisible near- and  mid-infrared wavelengths of light that have been translated into  visible-light colours, one the first images taken by the James Webb  Space Telescope (JWST).