Side-by-side images from the James Webb and Hubble space telescopes show why NASA spent 25 years and $10 billion

On Tuesday, the first full-color images of the James Webb Space Telescope were released.

The scientists who worked on the project were taken aback by the images and told reporters in a Tuesday briefing that they nearly broke.

The new space snapshots show a lot of things that have never been shown before. They paint the birth and death of stars in new colors and peer further into the distance than any telescope has ever done.

The Hubble Space Telescope was used to take these images. The benefits of 25 years and $10 billion NASA spent on its new observatory can be seen in the new pictures.

NASA/STScI; NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

A long-exposure of a tiny portion of the sky was released on Monday. The new space observatory was shown to be much stronger in a series of pictures on Tuesday. The images are warm-ups for the years to come.

The chief scientist of NASA's astrophysics division said that they haven't even begun trying yet.

JWST clearly shows two stars at the center of this nebula, where Hubble only saw one

The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA/NASA); NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

The Southern Ring Nebula is a dying star that is slowly expelling the layers of its atmosphere in successive waves, creating ever-increasing bubbles of colorful gas. Scientists could not see the stars in the images.

The dying star is red because it is surrounded by dust and is next to a white companion star.

With other wavelengths of infrared light, JWST sees different details in the same nebula

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

The structure of the nebula is shown in this picture. The leftover core of the star causes the blue bubble to be superheated. The outer regions are made of hydrogen and have holes in them.

A cluster of five galaxies is much sharper through JWST's lens

Hubble SM4 ERO Team/NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Four of the galaxies are about 300,000 light-years away and locked in a dance with each other.

In the JWST image, you can see galaxies in the background that were invisible to Hubble

Hubble SM4 ERO Team/NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

The new telescope is 100 times stronger than the old one.

The new image also reveals the stellar nurseries created as galaxies merge

Hubble SM4 ERO Team/NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI

Mark McCaughrean, senior advisor for science and exploration at the European Space Agency, said in a livestream that gas and dust are being heated up in the collision of the two galaxies.

Gas and dust collapse as they get heated. There is a nursery for the birth of new stars in the picture.

McCaughrean said that they are seeing the creation of new stars in the region.

This is Hubble's image of a star nursery in the Carina Nebula...

NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

And this is JWST's image of the same region

NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

"I can't help but think about scale when I see an image like this," said a NASA astronomer in the livestream. Every dot of light we see here is a star and many of them have planets as well. Our sun and our planet were formed out of the same things that we see here.

The JWST image reveals hundreds of stars that weren't visible before

NASA/ESA/The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)/CSA

"These are incredible capabilities that we've never had before, and this is going to be revolutionary," Jane Rigby, a NASA scientist, said in the briefings.