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James Webb Space Telescope - NASA Science

James Webb Space Telescope

Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the history of our Universe.

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A montage of the Webb Space Telescope over a composited background of stars and galaxies.

Webb studies every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System. Webb launched on Dec. 25th 2021. It does not orbit around the Earth like the Hubble Space Telescope, it orbits the Sun 1.5 million kilometers (1 million miles) away from the Earth at what is called the second Lagrange point or L2. 

Mission Type

Astrophysics

Partners

NASA/ESA/CSA

Launch

Dec 25, 2021

Arrival at L2

Jan 24, 2022

Key Facts

Fact Sheet
This image is from Webb’s NIRCam instrument, which saw this nebula in the near-infrared.

Premiere Telescope of Next Decade

extending the tantalizing discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope.

Engineers Prep James Webb Telescope for Integration

Folding Design

So big it has to fold origami-style to fit in the rocket and will unfold like a “Transformer” in space.

Webb Lagrange Points

1.5 Million km

Webb orbits the Sun 1.5 million kilometers from the Earth. (Hubble orbits 560 kilometers above the Earth.)

NASA’s Webb Sunshield Successfully Unfolds and Tensions in Final Tests

SPF 1 Million

Webb has a 5-layer sunshield that protects the telescope from the infrared radiation of the Sun, Earth, and Moon; like having sun protection of SPF 1 million.

The image shows the galaxy cluster SMACS 0723 as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago

Unprecedented Sensitivity

iIt will peer back in time over 13.5 billion years to see the first galaxies born after the Big Bang.in the ISS.

NASA’s Webb Opens New Window on Supernova Science

Peering deeply into the cosmos, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is giving scientists their first detailed glimpse of supernovae from a time when our universe was just a small fraction of its current age. A team using Webb data has identified 10 times more supernovae in the early universe than were previously known. A few of the newfound exploding stars are the most distant examples of their type, including those used to measure the universe's expansion rate.

"Webb is a supernova discovery machine," said Christa DeCoursey, a third-year graduate student at the Steward Observatory and the University of Arizona in Tucson. “The sheer number of detections plus the great distances to these supernovae are the two most exciting outcomes from our survey.”

Space telescope image showing hundreds of objects of different colors, shapes, and sizes scattered across the black background of space, with about 80 of the objects circled in green.
The JADES Deep Field uses observations taken by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the JADES (JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey) program. A team of astronomers studying JADES data identified about 80 objects (circled in green) that changed in brightness over time. Most of these objects, known as transients, are the result of exploding stars or supernovae. Prior to this survey, only a handful of supernovae had been found above a redshift of 2, which corresponds to when the universe was only 3.3 billion years old — just 25% of its current age. The JADES sample contains many supernovae that exploded even further in the past, when the universe was less than 2 billion years old. It includes the farthest one ever spectroscopically confirmed, at a redshift of 3.6. Its progenitor star exploded when the universe was only 1.8 billion years old.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, JADES Collaboration

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    JADES Deep Field with transients circled.

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  • Annotated - 4k pixel wide (2.5MB jpg)

    JADES Deep Field with transients circled.

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  • Unnnotated - 4k pixel wide (2.5MB jpg)

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Latest News

Webb's latest news releases in reverse chronological order. Search and sort the news feed with the controls immediately below.

The Crab Nebula. An oval with complex structure extends from lower left to upper right against a black background. On the oval’s exterior lie curtains of glowing yellow and green fluffy material. Its interior shell shows large-scale loops of mottled filaments of yellow-white and green, studded with clumps and knots. Translucent thin ribbons of smoky blue lie within the remnant’s interior, brightest toward its center. The blue material follows different directions throughout, including sometimes sharply curving away from certain regions within the remnant. A faint, wispy ring of blue material encircles the very center of the nebula. Around and within the supernova remnant are many points of blue, green, purple, and white light.

Investigating the Origins of the Crab Nebula With NASA’s Webb

New data revises our view of this unusual supernova explosion. A team of scientists used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to parse the composition of the Crab Nebula, a supernova remnant located 6,500 light-years away in the constellation Taurus. With…

Article6 hours ago

NASA’s Webb Reveals Long-Studied Star Is Actually Twins

Managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory through launch, Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument also revealed jets of gas flowing into space from the twin stars. Scientists recently got a big surprise from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope when they turned the observatory…

Article4 days ago
Webb Space telescope deep field image showing hundreds of objects of different colors, shapes, and sizes scattered across the black background of space.

NASA’s Webb Opens New Window on Supernova Science

Peering deeply into the cosmos, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is giving scientists their first detailed glimpse of supernovae from a time when our universe was just a small fraction of its current age. A team using Webb data has…

Article1 week ago
A yellowish star is at the center of the image. It is surrounded by a mottled disk of gas and dust that transitions from bright yellow to darker orange as you move outward. The disk stretches from about 8 o'clock to 2 o'clock and is tilted so that the nearer side is toward the viewer.

Webb Finds Plethora of Carbon Molecules Around Young Star

An international team of astronomers has used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to study the disk of gas and dust around a young, very low-mass star. The results reveal the largest number of carbon-containing molecules seen to date in such…

Article2 weeks ago
Insider's View

Webb's Blog

Webb's Blog posts offer an insider's point of view covering a variety of topics that include exciting Webb science images/spectra that are not yet peer reviewed and therefore not released as NASA feature articles ( IE the above official Webb News Feed). Blog posts are often co-authored by scientists and engineers and offer unique insights.

Read Webb's Blog
The background is mostly dark. At the center is a dark orange-brown circle, surrounded by several blazing bright, thick, horizontal whiteish rings. This is Saturn and its rings. There are three tiny dots in the image—one to the upper left of the planet, one to the direct left of the planet, and the lower left of the planet. These are three of Saturn’s moons: Dione, Enceladus, and Tethys, respectively. There is a slightly darker tint at the northern and southern poles of the planet. The rings surrounding Saturn are mostly broad, with a few singular narrow gaps between the broader rings. There is an innermost, thicker ring, and next to that is a brighter, wider ring. Traveling farther outward, there is a small dark gap before another thicker ring. In the thicker ring, there is a narrow faint band. There is then an outermost, faintest, thinnest ring.
A slice of the original image. Webb took its first near-infrared look at Saturn on June 25. The planet appears extremely dark at this wavelength, as methane gas in its atmosphere absorbs sunlight, but its rings stay bright! This image was taken as part of a Webb science program designed to test the telescope’s capacity to detect faint moons around the planet and study its bright rings. Take a closer look here to find details within the planet's ring system, as well as the moons Dione, Enceladus, and Tethys. Saturn’s rings are made up of an array of rocky and icy fragments – the particles range in size from smaller than a grain of sand to a few as large as mountains on Earth.
NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Matt Tiscareno (SETI Institute), Matt Hedman (University of Idaho), Maryame El Moutamid (Cornell University), Mark Showalter (SETI Institute), Leigh Fletcher (University of Leicester), Heidi Hammel (AURA). Image processing: J. DePasquale (STScI)

Small exoplanets are common in our galaxy, and some even orbit in the so-called habitable zone of their star. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has been busy observing a few of these small, potentially habitable planets, and astronomers are now hard at work analyzing Webb data. We invite Drs. Knicole Colón and Christopher Stark, two Webb project scientists at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, to tell us more about the challenges in studying these other worlds.

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Latest Webb Blog

Reconnaissance of Potentially Habitable Worlds with NASA’s Webb

Infographic with 3 rows comparing the habitale zone size for 3 different types of stars, M, K, G.


Latest 2024 Images

The image below is a SLIDESHOW. Hover over the image to see the image title and controls. Click the image to go to a detail page with more info and the ability to download the image at various resolutions (click downward arrow in lower right corner).

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Cas A - Chandra/Webb/Hubble/Spitzer composite
Webb Observation tracking TOOL

What is Webb Observing?

See current, upcoming and recent past observations scientists are making with the Webb Space Telescope. View details about each observation's science focus areas, the instruments used and more. 

View the Tool
Two side-by-side images of the same region of space. Superimposed on each is a simple, white line drawing of a telescope. Left: Drawing of the Hubble Space Telescope on a Hubble image showing numerous stars and a hazy blue to brown cloud of gas and dust. Right: Drawing of the Webb Space Telescope on a Webb image showing numerous stars and a pinkish yellow to brown cloud of gas and dust. The Webb image shows a more filamentous and billowy structure. There is no clear boundary between the two images.
About

The Webb Mission

Webb is the premier observatory of the next decade, serving thousands of astronomers worldwide. It studies every phase in the history of our Universe, ranging from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang, to the formation of solar systems capable of supporting life on planets like Earth, to the evolution of our own Solar System.

Learn More
A Engineer looks over one of the James Webb Space Telescope's primary mirror segments.
This is a photo of one of the James Webb Space Telescope's primary mirror segments coated with gold by Quantum Coating Incorporated. It's NOT a flight segment, it's the engineering design unit. The photo was taken at BATC by Drew Noel.
Photo by Drew Noel
About

Webb's Science Goals

The James Webb Space Telescope is a giant leap forward in our quest to understand the Universe and our origins. Webb is examining every phase of cosmic history: from the first luminous glows after the Big Bang to the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets to the evolution of our own solar system. Learn about the 4 main science themes for Webb.

Learn More
This image is from Webb’s NIRCam instrument, which saw this nebula in the near-infrared.
NASA’s Webb Captures Dying Star’s Final ‘Performance’ in Fine Detail
NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI
About

The Spacecraft

The Webb Space Telescope is the largest, most powerful and most complex telescope ever launched into space . It's design and development history stretches back before the Hubble Space Telescope was launched.  Learn about the design, the major components and subsystems of Webb and see Webb in 3d in a 3d Solar System.

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Webb Spacecraft Rendering
About

The International Webb Team

Webb is for the world, and from the world. Thousands of skilled scientists, engineers and technicians from 14 countries (and more than  29 U.S. states, and Washington, D.C.) contributed to the design, build, test, integration, launch, commissioning and operations of Webb. It is a joint NASA/ESA/CSA mission. Assembly and testing of the mirror and instruments occurred at NASA Goddard (GSFC).

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A full disk view of the earth from GOES 16, GOES East on the vernal Equinox.
A full disk view of the earth from GOES 16, GOES East on the vernal Equinox.
NOAA/NASA