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NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and Northrup Grumman ====================================================================================== Now begins the process of aligning all 18 mirror segments so that they work together as one. Since the arrival of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope at its orbital destination January 24, the mission operations team has successfully powered on all of the telescope’s science instruments, including its primary camera, the Near Infrared Camera, or NIRCam, built by a team of researchers and engineers led by University of Arizona astronomer Marcia Rieke. Turning the instruments on is the first in a series of critical steps...

HD 84406 is located in the constellation Ursa Major, which means "Big Bear" in Latin. The Big Dipper asterism (or star pattern) is actually part of this constellation, and it's the tail of this furry beast. The star has a visual magnitude of about 6.9, which is too dim to see with the naked eye. To see the star, you'll need a telescope or high-power binoculars. Here's our guide for the best telescopes for 2022, and our guide for the best binoculars may help you find the right pair to hunt Webb's star. A bright point like HD 84406 provides...

NASA The James Webb Space Telescope has fired its thrusters and reached its orbital destination around a million miles (1.5 million kilometers) away from our planet, NASA said Monday, a key milestone on its mission to study cosmic history. At around 2:00 pm Eastern Time (1900 GMT), the observatory fired its thrusters for 5 minutes in order to reach the so-called second Lagrange point, or L2, where it will have access to nearly half the sky at any given moment. "Webb, welcome home!" said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a statement. "We're one step closer to uncovering the mysteries...

On Monday, January 24, engineers plan to instruct NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to complete a final correction burn that will place it into its desired orbit, nearly 1 million miles away from the Earth at what is called the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point, or "L2" for short.

A pallet holding three of the James Webb Space Telescope's 18 hexagonal mirror segments rotated into position and locked in place Saturday, filling out the observatory's 21.3-foot-wide primary mirror to wrap up the most complicated set of spacecraft deployments ever attempted...The first science images are expected in about six months.

The James Webb Telescope was successfully launched yesterday, Christmas Day. It is now on route to a point about a million miles from earth where it will be in orbit around the sun and pointed out beyond the solar system. Hopefully, setting up the Webb telescope will be as successful as its launch.Okay, so here is my question: What AMAZING discoveries do you think the Webb telescope will reveal? The Hubble telescope was able to take us back in time to very early after the creation of the universe but the Webb telescope, using infrared technology will take us back...

The world’s largest and most powerful space telescope rocketed away Saturday on a high-stakes quest to behold light from the first stars and galaxies and scour the universe for hints of life. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope soared from French Guiana on South America’s northeastern coast, riding a European Ariane rocket into the Christmas morning sky. The $10 billion observatory hurtled toward its destination 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away, or more than four times beyond the moon. It will take a month to get there and another five months before its infrared eyes are ready to start scanning...

During the winter holidays, Jews celebrate a miraculous, unquenchable light and Christians celebrate the incarnation of God revealed by the light of a star. It’s fitting, therefore, that on December 22 NASA will launch a new satellite capable of seeing the first starlight from just after the Big Bang—a light, and an event, that tell us about the creation of the universe and, in their own ways, reveal God to the world. NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope will be carried into space this week from French Guiana on the back of an Ariane 5 rocket. The $10 billion, 21-foot...

The James Webb Space Telescope is confirmed for the target launch date of December 24, at 7:20 a.m. EST.

Explanation: Move over Hubble -- here comes the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). JWST promises to be the new most powerful telescope in space. In the last month, the 18-segment gold-plated primary mirror for JWST was unveiled. In the featured time-lapse video taken last week, the 6.5-meter diameter mirror was raised to a vertical position. The dramatic 30-second sequence shows NASA engineers monitoring the test as room lights glint brightly off the mirror's highly reflective surface. The beryllium mirrors have been coated with a thin film of gold to make them more reflective to infrared light. The science goals of...

A critical component of the James Webb Space Telescope is its new technology. Much of the technology for the Webb had to be conceived, designed and built specifically to enable it to see farther back in time. As with many NASA technological advances, some of the innovations are being used to benefit humankind in many other industries.

The next generation space telescope is several hundred percent over budget and is stealing cash from other worthy science projects at NASA. The launch of the James Webb Space Telescope, named for the Apollo-era NASA administrator, has been eagerly anticipated by astronomers for years. It would allow scientists to view events and objects much further from earth and much further back in time than even the spectacular but aging Hubble. In fact, it is designed to see all the way back to the beginning of time. Sadly, they may be disappointed. A couple months ago, Florida Today ran an exposé...

WASHINGTON — The House appropriations panel that oversees NASA unveiled a 2012 spending bill July 6 that would pull the plug on the budget-busting James Webb Space Telescope as part of a broader $1.6 billion cut that would roll back spending on the nation’s civil space program to pre-2008 levels. The $16.8 billion top-line figure, released July 6 in draft legislation from the House Appropriations commerce, justice, science subcommittee, is nearly $2 billion less than U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2012 budget request for NASA. The draft appropriations bill, which the subcommittee is scheduled to vote on July 7, also includes...