NASA launched its James Webb Space Telescope on Christmas Day in 2021. Since then, it has taken numerous breathtaking photographs.

The $10 billion telescope is equipped with “ultrasensitive infrared sensors [that] are designed to capture light emitted more than 13.6 billion years ago.” It is 100 times more powerful than NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, is about the size of a tennis court and has a 21.5-foot-wide gold-coated mirror.

The telescope could even “show the face of Abraham Lincoln on a penny from a distance of 24 miles.”

NASA designed and developed the telescope along with its partner agencies, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

If you have been following along on the telescope’s journey, you’ll know the telescope is currently orbiting the sun around 1 million miles away from Earth – about four times the length as the Earth is from the moon.

Additionally, you’ve likely seen some of the awe-inspiring pictures that the telescope has taken so far.

Here are just a few.

This image is of Stephan’s Quintet – a grouping of five galaxies that are visible from Earth in the constellation Pegasus.

Photo Credit: Webb Space Telescope

This second picture is of the Pillars of Creation, a massive collection of interstellar gas and dust in the Eagle Nebula.

Photo Credit: Webb Space Telescope

This third pictures is of L1529 – a dark molecular cloud – and the Protostar, or a newly forming star that is still gathering mass.

Photo Credit: Webb Space Telescope

For Christians seeing these images, far greater meaning is given to the truth that “the heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork” (Psalm 19:1 ESV). These images are new to us, but God has delighted in them since He created them. And it was God’s very good gift of ingenuity and creativity that allowed humans to develop the remarkable ability to see them.

As King David declared in 1 Chronicles 29:11:

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, Lord, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.

Related articles:

Harvard Scientist: Wonders of the Universe Point to a Creator

The Webb Telescope Confirms the Marvelous Handiwork of God

Picture from Webb Space Telescope.