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James Webb Space Telescope

  • Webb Unravels Small Cosmic Details With Interferometry Observing Mode

    A prototype of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRISS (Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph) non-redundant mask with seven hexagonal pinholes with outlines of the telescope’s primary mirror segments and secondary mirror support struts. When light passes through these pinholes, it creates a pattern of overlapping light waves. Similar to overlapping waves in water, these light waves can interfere constructively (combine together) or destructively (cancel out) with each other, creating a complex pattern of light and dark spots known as fringes.

    One of the most recognizable features of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is its large, segmented, gold-coated mirror, which delivers images twice as sharp as pre-launch estimates. Aperture masking interferometry is an observational technique that allows for high-angular resolution imaging of celestial objects. The basic principle involves placing a specially designed mask with several small […]

  • How NASA’s Webb Helped Rule Out Asteroid’s Chance of 2032 Lunar Impact

    The image is a pixelized graph of mostly black, gray, and white squares with the y-axis labelled as "Y (pixel)" and the x-axis labeled as "X (pixel)" with a scale of 0 to 70 on each axis, with a marking at multiples of 10. A legend defining the colors from black thru various gray shades to white has a scale of 0.0 at the black end of the scale and 0.5 at the white end of the scale with markings at each one-tenth. The legend scale is labelled "Flux (nJy)". Near the center of the image is a dashed green circle surrounding nearly white pixels. A red circle is higher on the graph by just more than 20 units and a few units to the right; the red circle is surrounding a black and slightly gray section. The graph has a legend for the green circle of "Observed position of 2024YR4" and a legend for the red circle of "Position assuming lunar impact".

    Editor’s Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process. These results were reported as part of NASA’s role in the International Asteroid Warning Network. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently made new observations of the asteroid 2024 YR4, which we already knew poses no […]

  • New Moon Discovered Orbiting Uranus Using NASA’s Webb Telescope

    At center of this is the planet Uranus, a blue globe with a large white spot occupying most of the planet. It’s surrounded by a series of rings that get brighter as you move outward. Beyond the rings are 14 moons appearing as points of light. Just beyond the outermost ring at 10 o’clock, a faint moon is visible.

    Editor’s Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process. Using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, a team led by the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has identified a previously unknown moon orbiting Uranus, expanding the planet’s known satellite family to 29. The detection was made […]

  • NASA’s Webb Finds Possible ‘Direct Collapse’ Black Hole

    A pair of distant galaxies that form the rough shape of an infinity symbol seen at roughly a 45-degree angle. Two overlapping, fuzzy rings with brighter blue patches are at upper right and lower left. At the center of each ring is a bright yellow blob, which is the nucleus. Where the two rings overlap on the left side, there is a mottled green patch of glowing gas midway between the two yellow nuclei. It is offset slightly to the left.

    Editor’s Note: This post highlights a combination of peer-reviewed results and data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process. As data from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope becomes public, researchers hunt its archives for unnoticed cosmic oddities. While examining images from the COSMOS-Web survey, two researchers, Pieter van […]

  • How NASA’s Webb Telescope Supports Our Search for Life Beyond Earth

    k2-18b

    This artist’s concept shows what exoplanet K2-18 b could look like based on science data. K2-18 b, an exoplanet 8.6 times as massive as Earth, orbits the cool dwarf star K2-18 in the habitable zone and lies 120 light-years from Earth. Illustration: NASA, CSA, ESA, J. Olmsted (STScI), Science: N. Madhusudhan (Cambridge University) NASA’s James …

  • NASA’s Webb Finds Asteroid 2024 YR4 Is Building-Sized

    A split image with a large box on the left and two smaller ones stacked on the right. The image on the left has a black starfield a several colorful dots indicating objects in space. Each of the two smaller boxes has one smudged reddish dot indicating an asteroid.

    Editor’s Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process. These results were reported as part of NASA’s role in the International Asteroid Warning Network. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope recently turned its watchful eye toward asteroid 2024 YR4, which we now know poses no significant …

  • NASA’s Webb Reveals the Ancient Surfaces of Trans-Neptunian Objects

    Images of the trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) Pluto [left] and Arrokoth [right], the primary flyby targets of NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft in 2015 and 2019.

    Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) are icy bodies ranging in size from Pluto and Eris (dwarf planets with diameters of about 1,500 miles) down to tens of miles (Arrokoth) and even smaller. TNOs are on orbits comparable in size, or even much larger than, that of Neptune. The existence of TNOs was postulated by Kenneth Edgeworth, and …

  • Monitoring Webb’s Mirrors for Optimal Optics

    This image is composed of three square panels in a row, taken by one of the James Webb Space Telescope’s onboard instruments known as the Near Infrared Camera. Each of the three panels contains their own different image that are set on a black background. The panel on the left has a small very blurry, and pixelated white and gray hexagon at the center. From each of the flat surfaces of the hexagon, a small gray and pixelated triangle with its tip facing away, totaling six gray pixelated triangles pointing away from the central hexagon. This picture is ‘selfie’ using a specialized ‘pupil imaging’ lens, designed to take images of the mirror segments and not of the sky. The central panel shows the 18 hexagons of Webb’s primary mirror, akin to the hexagons of a beehive in bright white and gray, but are intentionally defocused and very blurry and pixelated. From the edges of the outer hexagons, light white and gray streak extend nearly all the way to the edge of the picture. The panel on the right is very similar to the image in the center panel, but the hexagon at the very center has black dots at each of the sixe points of the hexagon. At the outer edges it also has streaking blurry gray and white lines that emanate away from the center towards the edge of the picture

    NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the largest and most powerful telescope ever launched to space. Its mirror is composed of 18 individual segments that have been aligned so accurately, that they effectively work as a single giant (21.6-foot, or 6.5-meter) reflector. The process of adjusting each of these separately functioning hexagonal mirror segments requires …

  • Webb Researchers Discover Lensed Supernova, Confirm Hubble Tension

    Editor’s Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process. Measuring the Hubble constant, the rate at which the universe is expanding, is an active area of research among astronomers around the world who analyze data from both ground- and space- based observatories. NASA’s James Webb …