ESA Marks Four Years of JWST Operations with Immersive Cosmic Video Release

The European Space Agency (ESA), in collaboration with NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), premiered a 43-minute video on December 25, 2025, marking four years since the launch of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Titled 'Fly Through Webb's Cosmic Vistas,' the production uses the telescope's infrared observations to simulate a journey through celestial phenomena captured by its advanced instruments.

The virtual tour began with an exploration of the Milky Way, focusing on emission nebulae and molecular clouds within stellar nurseries. This segment highlighted the JWST's infrared capability to penetrate obscuring dust, revealing star formation in regions such as the Carina Nebula and the Pillars of Creation. The telescope launched on December 25, 2021, aboard an ESA-provided Ariane 5 rocket from Europe's Spaceport in French Guiana, commencing science operations in mid-2022.

The cinematic narrative then transitioned to deep field views, showcasing distant, interacting galaxy systems like Stephan's Quintet. Webb's superior resolution allowed for detailed visualization of gravitational interplay, including shock fronts and complex dust lanes. The international partnership positioned the telescope near the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, approximately 1.5 million kilometers from Earth, and has since collected 550 terabytes of data.

Further segments detailed massive galaxy clusters acting as gravitational lenses, magnifying light from extremely remote objects. Scientists utilize these lensing effects to trace mass distribution in systems like SMACS 0723, capturing light that has traveled over 10 billion years to link current visuals with early Universe galaxy evolution models. The production team mapped calibrated infrared data to visible color palettes to create these scientifically accurate animations.

The retrospective also cited significant 2025 scientific milestones, underscoring the mission's sustained productivity, with projections for service extending into the 2040s. A key achievement mentioned was the direct imaging of a Saturn-mass exoplanet orbiting the star TWA 7, a discovery led by Dr. Anne-Marie Lagrange. This planet, TWA 7b, is approximately 100 light-years distant and only 6.4 million years old, representing the lightest planet yet observed via direct imaging using Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and its coronagraph.

The JWST's initial images were released in July 2022, following its Christmas Day 2021 launch. The mission has already challenged galaxy formation models by identifying unexpectedly massive early galaxies. The full-resolution video is available for educational use on the ESA's official platforms.