Read the latest news on the James Webb Space Telescope, the large, space-based observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope. With its 6.5-meter primary mirror, Webb offers longer wavelength coverage and vastly improved sensitivity, allowing it to look further back in time to view the first galaxies that formed in the early universe and to peer inside dust clouds where stars and planets are forming today.
Astronomers and engineers have designed telescopes, in part, to be “time travelers.” The farther away an object is, the longer its light takes to reach…
With more than 4,000 planets known that orbit other stars, scientists have discovered that many of these exoplanets are quite unlike our own. NASA has…
To test the James Webb Space Telescope’s readiness for its journey in space, technicians successfully commanded it to deploy and extend a critical part of…
Researchers will observe far-flung asteroids, some with moons, to learn more about the makeup and history of our solar system Millions of asteroids roam our…
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been successfully folded and stowed into the same configuration it will have when loaded onto an Ariane 5 rocket…
Whether there is life elsewhere in the universe is a question people have pondered for millennia, and within the last few decades, great strides have…
In a recent test, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope fully deployed its primary mirror into the same configuration it will have when in space. As…
Larger, gas giant exoplanets will also fall under the James Webb Space Telescope’s gaze The TRAPPIST-1 system of exoplanets holds exciting possibilities in the search…
The James Webb Space Telescope is the largest, most powerful and most technologically challenging space telescope ever built. The Webb Telescope is so large; it…
How small are the smallest celestial objects that form like stars, but don’t produce their own light? How common are they compared to full-fledged stars?…
This Hubblecast explores how the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s observations differ across different wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, and how these observations will be complemented…
When NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope launches in 2021, one of its most anticipated contributions to astronomy will be the study of exoplanets—planets orbiting distant…
Three billion years ago, Earth was a very different place. The sun that shone on its oceans and continents was not as bright as it…
NASA scientists plan to demonstrate a revolutionary technology for studying hundreds of stars and galaxies at the same time — a new capability originally created…
The center of our galaxy is a crowded place: A black hole weighing 4 million times as much as our Sun is surrounded by millions…
Over thirty years ago, the Infrared Astronomy Satellite discovered that the universe contained many extremely luminous galaxies, some more than a thousand times brighter than…
In April 2018, NASA launched the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). Its main goal is to locate Earth-sized planets and larger “super-Earths” orbiting nearby stars…
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the most ambitious and complex space observatory ever built, will use its unparalleled infrared capabilities to study Jupiter’s Great Red…