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Over the past several weeks, NASA's ultra-powerful James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has allowed humankind some unprecedented glimpses into the farthest reaches of our universe. And unsurprisingly, some of these dazzling new observations have raised more questions than they've answered.For a long time, for instance, scientists believed the universe's earliest, oldest galaxies to be small, slightly chaotic, and misshapen systems. But according to the Washington Post, JWST-captured imagery has revealed those galaxies to be shockingly massive, not to mention balanced and well-formed — a finding that challenges, and will likely rewrite, long-held understandings about the origins of our universe. "The...

To everyone who sees them, the new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) images of the cosmos are beautifully awe-inspiring. But to most professional astronomers and cosmologists, they are also extremely surprising—not at all what was predicted by theory. In the flood of technical astronomical papers published online since July 12, the authors report again and again that the images show surprisingly many galaxies, galaxies that are surprisingly smooth, surprisingly small and surprisingly old. Lots of surprises, and not necessarily pleasant ones. One paper’s title begins with the candid exclamation: “Panic!”Why do the JWST’s images inspire panic among cosmologists? And what...

Image developers on the Webb team are tasked with turning the telescope’s infrared image data into some of the most vivid views of the cosmos we’ve ever had. They assign various infrared wavelengths to colors on the visible spectrum, the familiar reds, blues, yellows, etc. Longer infrared waves are assigned redder colors, and the shortest infrared wavelengths are assigned bluer colors. (Blue and violet light has the shortest wavelengths within the visible spectrum, while red has the longest.) The process is called chromatic ordering, and the spectrum is split into as many colors as the team needs to capture the...

Cartwheel Galaxy (NIRCam and MIRI Composite Image) A large pink, speckled galaxy resembling a wheel with a small, inner oval, with dusty blue in between on the right, with two smaller spiral galaxies about the same size to the left against a black background. This image of the Cartwheel and its companion galaxies is a composite from Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) and Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI), which reveals details that are difficult to see in the individual images alone. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI Webb’s Instruments Reveal New Details About Star Formation The incredible imaging capabilities of NASA’s James Webb Space...

"Homophobic Telescope Reveals First Hi-Res Images of Deep Space."First a disclaimer. That is not a headline from the Babylon Bee. It is an actual MSN headline of a July 13 story about the first amazing images seen from the James Webb Space Telescope. How can it be homophobic?MSN is borrowing from "INTO," which calls itself "A Digital Magazine for the Modern Queer World."While most people were amazed by the images sent by the Webb Telescope -- which is so powerful it can peer back almost to the beginning of time -- MSN's article was absurdly obsessed with the man it...

It hasn't even been a fortnight since the first image release, and the James Webb Space Telescope is just continuously knocking all our socks off. Only a few images have been officially released, but that hasn't stopped citizen scientists digging through the raw data to see what they can find. One of those is Judy Schmidt, who has been processing raw space data into breathtaking images for years. Courtesy of her painstaking work, we now have absolutely jaw-dropping images of two spectacular spiral galaxies. The first is NGC 628, also known as the Phantom Galaxy. The other is NGC 7496....

On Monday, July 11, President Joe Biden released one of the James Webb Space Telescope’s first images in a preview event at the White House in Washington. NASA, in partnership with ESA (European Space Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency), will release the full set of Webb’s first full-color images and spectroscopic data during a televised broadcast beginning at 10:30 a.m. EDT (14:30 UTC) on Tuesday, July 12, from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Learn more about how to watch. This first image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is the deepest and sharpest infrared image of...

The James Webb Space Telescope's first deep field view was shared on Monday. The image shows SMACS 0723, where a massive group of galaxy clusters act as a magnifying glass for the objects behind them, including faint, distant galaxies. > The James Webb Space Telescope's first deep field view was shared on Monday. The image shows SMACS 0723, where a massive group of galaxy clusters act as a magnifying glass for the objects behind them, including faint, distant galaxies. NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more....

From more than 1,000 proposals, the scientists that hoped to perform the observatory’s historic first studies now know their fate The James Webb Space Telescope's First Year of Extraordinary Science Has Been Revealed Artist’s concept of the James Webb Space Telescope’s scientific capabilities. The infrared observatory’s large mirror will allow astronomers to search for the universe’s first galaxies and stars while also studying the atmospheres of nearby exoplanets. Credit: NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI) Years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) often finds itself the butt of jokes. From satirical Webcomics...

Last week, NASA administrator Bill Nelson told us we'd see the "deepest image of our Universe that has ever been taken" on July 12, thanks to the newly operational James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). And we know many of you excitedly marked the date in your calendar. But over the weekend the space agency announced that they'd actually be releasing one the very first image a day ahead of schedule – at 5pm EDT (2100 UTC and 7am AEST on Tuesday 12 July). The first image will be released by US President Joe Biden in a special live stream that...

In some ways, the last place you’d want to put the James Webb Space Telescope is, well, in space. If you owned a $10 billion car, you wouldn’t leave it out in a hail storm, and while there’s no hail in space, there are plenty of micrometeoroids—high speed debris no bigger than a dust grain but moving so fast they can pack a true destructive wallop. Every day, millions of such fragments rain down on Earth, but they incinerate in the atmosphere long before they reach the ground. The Webb, parked in a spot in space 1.6 million km (1...

NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) will jointly release the James Webb Space Telescope’s first full-color images and spectroscopic data during a live broadcast on July 12 at 10:40 AM EDT.The trio of space agencies plans to release the images one by one and the broadcast will serve to kick off the scientific operations of the largest and most powerful space telescope the world has ever launched.The photos will not be available to anyone prior to the live unveiling, allowing the entire world to enjoy the photos together unspoiled.Live coverage of the image release...

NASA reported this week that a small meteoroid struck the telescope sometime between May 23-25. The object smacked one of the primary mirror segments, which will cause NASA to realign the mirror to reduce distortion caused by the impact. The space agency said it anticipated the telescope would be bombarded with dust-sized particles, and the strike was larger than anticipated. NASA said that the telescope’s beginning-of-life performance is still well above expectations, and the observatory is fully capable of performing the science it was designed to achieve.

These tiny meteoroids typically weigh less than a gram, yet they still pose a significant threat to spacecraft because their average speed...is a staggering 22,500 mph...After initial assessments, the team found the telescope is still performing at a level that exceeds all mission requirements despite a marginally detectable effect in the data.

Webb MIRI and Spitzer Comparison Image Comparison of a Webb Space Telescope Mid-Infrared Instrument image of the Large Magellanic Cloud and a past image of the same view using the Spitzer Space Telescope Infrared Array Camera. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech (left), NASA/ESA/CSA/STScI (right) ************************************************************************ NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is aligned across all four of its science instruments, as seen in a previous engineering image showing the observatory’s full field of view. Now, we take a closer look at that same image, focusing on Webb’s coldest instrument: the Mid-Infrared Instrument, or MIRI. The MIRI test image (at 7.7 microns) shows part of...

But we know some of the later ones! The James Webb Space Telescope has a packed schedule for its first year of observations. (Image credit: ESA) In the first year of its scientific operations, the James Webb Space Telescope will study small galaxies orbiting the Milky Way, look for the oldest stars in the universe or peer inside mysterious remnants of an exploded star. Its very first science targets, however, remain top secret. The mighty James Webb Space Telescope recently aligned its mirrors and showed off the sharpness of its eyes on a random underwhelming star. But the world's science...

The 1960s agency administrator's treatment of LGBTQ people has come under question.New documents suggest that NASA officials dismissed concerns raised by the LGBTQ community over the name of its newest observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope. NASA was aware that discrimination against LGBTQ people took place in the agency under the leadership of 1960s administrator James Webb when it refused to remove the man's name from its flagship mission, new documents obtained by Nature reveal. In early 2021, a group of astronomers petitioned NASA to change the name of the space observatory of the century, the $10 billion James Webb...

The blurry image appears to show 18 different blobs of starlight – though they are actually all the same star, shaken up because the pieces of mirror in the telescope are not yet properly aligned...Over the next month or so, Nasa's engineers will adjust the telescope so that those 18 dots merge into one..."The entire Webb team is ecstatic at how well the first steps of taking images and aligning the telescope are proceeding." [Image posted in Comment #1]

The James Webb Space Telescope's key pointing instrument is working well in testing...The Fine Guidance Sensor (FGS)...successfully locked on to a specific guide star in tracking mode on Sunday...the instrument will next be used to assist with the ongoing alignment of the 18 hexagonal segments that make up the primary mirror of the telescope...