This stamp recognizes NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The largest and most complex telescope ever deployed in space, it is capable of peering directly into the early cosmos and studying every phase of cosmic history. Launched on Dec. 25, 2021, Webb now orbits the Sun about a million miles away from Earth.
The image on the stamp is an artist’s digitally created depiction of the telescope against a dazzling starscape. A photograph of a star and distant space in the full pane margin was taken by Webb early in its mission, brilliantly confirming the perfect alignment of the telescope’s 18 mirror segments.
Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp using existing art by James Vaughan and an image provided by NASA/Space Telescope Science Institute.