James Webb Just Spent 100 Hours Looking at 'Nothing' — What It Found Is Mind-Blowing

James Webb, Hubble, deep field The James Webb Space Telescope just spent nearly 100 hours staring at a single patch of sky, and for the second time in three years, it broke its own record for the deepest image of the universe ever captured. This video tells the story of MIDIS, the MIRI Deep Imaging Survey: Webb’s return to the same tiny region of the Fornax constellation that Hubble made famous as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field and the Hubble Extreme Deep Field. Using its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) alongside near-infrared NIRCam data, Webb gathered nearly 100 hours of light between December 2022 and December 2024, its longest single-filter observation of any extragalactic field, and revealed more than 2,500 additional galaxies hidden in what looked like empty space. We compare this 2025 deep field to Webb’s very first deep field from July 2022 (SMACS 0723, captured in just 12.5 hours), break down how astronomers turn invisible infrared light into the colors you see in these images, and look at NASA’s newly launched Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a telescope built for breadth instead of depth. If you’re curious about the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble’s deep field legacy, or how astronomers map the early universe, this is for you. Subscribe for more space breakdowns. Sources(Credits: MIDIS survey paper (Östlin et al., A&A 2025): https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2025/04/aa51723-24/aa51723-24.html ESA/Webb image of the MIDIS field: https://esawebb.org/images/potm2507a/ NASA — Webb's first deep field (SMACS 0723, 12.5 hrs): https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasas-webb-delivers-deepest-infrared-image-of-universe-yet/ NASA — Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/roman-space-telescope/roman-for-scientists/ Deep field imagery: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI 👇 Watch next: https://youtu.be/138yqPu4zjI https://youtu.be/BuI_zJasUwA #jameswebb #hubble #deepfield #cosmicvoid #spaceexploration