Washington DC - NASA has revealed the first images captured by the James Webb space super-telescope.

One image is a mosaic of 18 "randomly organized dots of starlight," that shows the telescope's unaligned mirror segments all reflecting light from the same star, the US space agency said.

Scientists would now spend time gradually adjusting the mirror segments until the 18 images become a single star.

"Launching Webb to space was of course an exciting event, but for scientists and optical engineers, this is a pinnacle moment, when light from a star is successfully making its way through the system down onto a detector," said NASA Webb observatory project scientist Michael McElwain.

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The telescope, which was built jointly by space agencies in Europe, the US and Canada, will explore the oldest galaxies in the universe.

Researchers hope that the images the telescope will capture will provide insights about the universe shortly after the Big Bang, about 13.8 billion years ago.

The telescope was launched on December 25 aboard an Ariane rocket from Europe's Kourou spaceport in French Guiana. It is the successor to the Hubble telescope, which has now been in use for more than 30 years.