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James Webb Space Telescope

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A crowded field of galaxies throngs this Picture of the Month from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, along with bright stars crowned with Webb’s signature six-pointed diffraction spikes. The large spiral galaxy at the base of this image is accompanied by a profusion of smaller, more distant galaxies which range from fully-fledged spirals to mere bright smudges. Named LEDA 2046648, it is situated a little over a billion light-years from Earth, in the constellation Hercules.

See a stunning field of galaxies captured by James Webb Space Telescope

Stunning images from James Webb continue to entrance, and recently the researchers using the telescope have shared a gorgeous image of a field of galaxies.
Georgina Torbet
This image by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope’s Near-InfraRed Camera (NIRCam) features the central region of the Chameleon I dark molecular cloud, which resides 630 light years away. The cold, wispy cloud material (blue, centre) is illuminated in the infrared by the glow of the young, outflowing protostar Ced 110 IRS 4 (orange, upper left). The light from numerous background stars, seen as orange dots behind the cloud, can be used to detect ices in the cloud, which absorb the starlight passing through them.

James Webb peers into icy cloud to learn about exoplanet formation

Researchers using James Webb have peered into a molecular cloud to look for these ices which could be formed into future exoplanets.
Georgina Torbet
The radio telescope array ALMA has pin-pointed the exact cosmic age of a distant JWST-identified galaxy, GHZ2/GLASS-z12, at 367 million years after the Big Bang. ALMA’s deep spectroscopic observations revealed a spectral emission line associated with ionized Oxygen near the galaxy, which has been shifted in its observed frequency due to the expansion of the Universe since the line was emitted. This observation confirms that the JWST is able to look out to record distances, and heralds a leap in our ability to understand the formation of the earliest galaxies in the Universe.

Age of ancient galaxy discovered by Webb confirmed using ALMA

The Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, an array of telescopes located in Chile, has confirmed the age of a very distant galaxy using oxygen.
Georgina Torbet
The James Webb Space Telescope.

One of James Webb’s four instruments is offline following error

The James Webb Space Telescope is experiencing an issue with one of its instruments, the Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph or NIRISS.
Georgina Torbet
Illustration of a planet on a black background. The planet is large and rocky. Roughly two-thirds of the planet is lit, while the rest is in shadow.

How James Webb peers into the atmospheres of far-off exoplanets

The James Webb Space Telescope recently detected its first exoplanet, but its real promise is in studying exoplanet atmospheres.
Georgina Torbet
NGC 346, shown here in this image from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam), is a dynamic star cluster that lies within a nebula 200,000 light years away. Webb reveals the presence of many more building blocks than previously expected, not only for stars, but also planets, in the form of clouds packed with dust and hydrogen. 

James Webb captures stunning image of star formation in nearby galaxy

A stunning new image from James Webb is also leading astronomers to rethink their theories about how stars and planets could have formed in the early universe.
Georgina Torbet
The power of JWST to map galaxies at high resolution and at longer infrared wavelengths than Hubble allows it look through dust and unveil the underlying structure and mass of distant galaxies. This can be seen in these two images of the galaxy EGS23205, seen as it was about 11 billion years ago. In the HST image (left, taken in the near-infrared filter), the galaxy is little more than a disk-shaped smudge obscured by dust and impacted by the glare of young stars, but in the corresponding JWST mid-infrared image (taken this past summer), it’s a beautiful spiral galaxy with a clear stellar bar.

James Webb spots early galaxies similar to our Milky Way

Astronomers have used Webb to discover some of the earliest galaxies with a feature called stellar bars, making them similar to our Milky Way.
Georgina Torbet
This image is dominated by NGC 7469, a luminous, face-on spiral galaxy approximately 90 000 light-years in diameter that lies roughly 220 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Pegasus. Its companion galaxy IC 5283 is partly visible in the lower left portion of this image.

James Webb image shows the bright glowing heart of a galaxy

Astronomers recently shared a stunning new image of space from the James Webb Space Telescope, showing a galaxy with an unusually bright heart.
Georgina Torbet
A swath of sky measuring 2% of the area covered by the full moon was imaged with Webb’s Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) in eight filters, and with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide-Field Camera 3 (WFC3) in three filters that together span the 0.25 to 5 micron wavelength range. This image represents a portion of the full PEARLS field, which will be about four times larger.

James Webb survey image shows a field of shining galaxies

Researchers from a Webb survey called PEARLS recently released their first results showing an area of the sky called the North Ecliptic Pole.
Georgina Torbet
This image taken by the James Webb Space Telescope highlights the region of study by the JWST Advanced Deep Extragalactic Survey (JADES). This area is in and around the Hubble Space Telescope’s Ultra Deep Field. Scientists used Webb’s NIRCam instrument to observe the field in nine different infrared wavelength ranges. From these images, the team searched for faint galaxies that are visible in the infrared but whose spectra abruptly cut off at a critical wavelength. They conducted additional observations (not shown here) with Webb’s NIRSpec instrument to measure each galaxy’s redshift and reveal the properties of the gas and stars in these galaxies. In this image blue represents light at 1.15 microns (115W), green is 2.0 microns (200W), and red is 4.44 microns (444W)

James Webb uses spectroscopy to identify earliest galaxies to date

New research provides confirmation that the James Webb Space Telescope has identified some of the oldest galaxies yet, estimated to be 13.4 billion years old.
Georgina Torbet
By combining images of the iconic Pillars of Creation from two cameras aboard the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope, the Universe has been framed in its infrared glory. Webb’s near-infrared image was fused with its mid-infrared image, setting this star-forming region ablaze with new details.

See Webb’s most beautiful image yet of the Pillars of Creation

Two of James Webb's images of the Pillars of Creation have been combined into one, showing a gorgeous new view of the famous structure.
Georgina Torbet
Near-infrared Images of Saturn’s moon Titan, as seen by JWST on November 4, 2022 (left), followed by Keck Observatory’s NIRC2 instrument paired with adaptive optics on November 6, 2022 (middle) and November 7, 2022 (right).

James Webb and Keck Observatory see clouds on Saturn’s moon Titan

Researchers using James Webb the Keck Observatory have teamed up to study Saturn's largest moon, Titan, and observe the way that clouds move around it.
Georgina Torbet
New observations of WASP-39b with the JWST have provided a clearer picture of the exoplanet, showing the presence of sodium, potassium, water, carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and sulfur dioxide in the planet's atmosphere. This artist's illustration also displays newly detected patches of clouds scattered across the planet.

James Webb gets most detailed look yet at an exoplanet’s atmosphere

Astronomers have used the James Webb Space Telescope to get the most in-depth look yet at the atmosphere of planet WASP-39 b.
Georgina Torbet
Two of the most distant galaxies seen to date are captured in these Webb pictures of the outer regions of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 2744. The galaxies are not inside the cluster, but many billions of light-years behind it. 

James Webb spots two of the earliest galaxies ever seen

The James Webb Space Telescope has discovered two of the earliest galaxies ever seen in the universe, and they are much brighter than expected.
Georgina Torbet
The protostar L1527, shown in this image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.

See a new star being born in stunning James Webb image

The James Webb Space Telescope has captured a stunning image of the birth of a new star.
Georgina Torbet
This artist’s conception shows the fully unfolded James Webb Space Telescope in space.

How NASA is dealing with micrometeoroids threatening James Webb

Earlier this year, James Webb Space Telescope suffered a micrometeoroid impact. Now, NASA has shared its plan to deal with such impacts as Webb ages.
Georgina Torbet
The James Webb Space Telescope.

James Webb’s MIRI instrument is back to full operations

This summer there was a problem with one mode on James Webb's Mid-Infrared Instrument or MIRI. Now, engineers have found a way to deal with the issue.
Georgina Torbet
This image from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope depicts IC 1623, an entwined pair of interacting galaxies which lies around 270 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Cetus. The two galaxies in IC 1623 are plunging headlong into one another in a process known as a galaxy merger. Their collision has ignited a frenzied spate of star formation known as a starburst, creating new stars at a rate more than twenty times that of the Milky Way galaxy.

James Webb captures a stunning colliding pair of galaxies

A recently released image from the James Webb Space Telescope shows the stunning galaxies IC 1623 A and B, which are in the process of merging.
Georgina Torbet
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope’s mid-infrared view of the Pillars of Creation strikes a chilling tone. Thousands of stars that exist in this region disappear – and seemingly endless layers of gas and dust become the centerpiece.

The Pillars of Creation look spooky in new James Webb image

Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope have released another image of the Pillars of Creation -- and it's a spooky one.
Georgina Torbet
The Pillars of Creation, imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope

Check out Webb telescope’s mind-blowing image of the Pillars of Creation

The James Webb Space Telescope's latest awe-inspiring image shows in astonishing detail the Pillars of Creation some 6,500 light-years away.
Trevor Mogg
Shells of cosmic dust created by the interaction of binary stars appear like tree rings around Wolf-Rayet 140.

This oddball pair of stars is producing dust shells like clockwork

The James Webb Space Telescope has spotted an intriguing object created by a rare pair of stars which are encircled by rings of dust.
Georgina Torbet
X-rays from Chandra have been combined with infrared data from early publicly-released James Webb Space Telescope images.

X-ray data from Chandra gives a new view of Webb’s first images

The Chandra X-ray Observatory provides a new spin on the famous first images from the James Webb Space Telescope.
Georgina Torbet
hubble webb galaxy dust stsci 2022 503a f 1858x1836 1

Telescope team-up sees Hubble and Webb working together

Scientists have combined data from two powerful telescopes to illuminate the dust in a distant galaxy pair.
Georgina Torbet
This image of the spiral galaxy IC 5332, taken by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope with its MIRI instrument, has been scaled and cropped to match the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope’s view of the same galaxy.

One galaxy, two views: Webb and Hubble take on the same target

The Hubble and James Webb telescopes are both powerful tools for peering out into the cosmos, but the way they view the universe is quite different.
Georgina Torbet
The James Webb Space Telescope.

One of James Webb’s 17 instrument modes isn’t working

NASA announced that one of Webb's seventeen observing modes is not functioning due to a hardware issue which is currently under review.
Georgina Torbet
Webb’s first images of Mars, captured by its NIRCam instrument Sept. 5, 2022 [Guaranteed Time Observation Program 1415]. Left: Reference map of the observed hemisphere of Mars from NASA and the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA). Top right: NIRCam image showing 2.1-micron (F212 filter) reflected sunlight, revealing surface features such as craters and dust layers. Bottom right: Simultaneous NIRCam image showing ~4.3-micron (F430M filter) emitted light that reveals temperature differences with latitude and time of day, as well as darkening of the Hellas Basin caused by atmospheric effects. The bright yellow area is just at the saturation limit of the detector.

James Webb goes in deep on Mars temperature and atmosphere

Webb will perform a major study of Jupiter and has already imaged Neptune. Now, Webb has been used to get a fascinating look at our planetary neighbor, Mars.
Georgina Torbet
Neptune, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Neptune as you’ve never seen it before, imaged by Webb telescope

The newly deployed James Webb Space Telescope has once again turned its attention to planets closer to home, capturing Neptune in a remarkable way.
Trevor Mogg
The Tarantula Nebula captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.

NASA’s Webb telescope captures the majestic Tarantula Nebula

The most powerful space telescope ever built is continuing to send back dazzling images of the universe from its orbit a million miles from Earth.
Trevor Mogg
This landscape of “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars is actually the edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula. Captured in infrared light by NASA’s new James Webb Space Telescope, this image reveals for the first time previously invisible areas of star birth.

Listen to the sounds of space with these James Webb sonifications

NASA released a series of sonifications of the famous first images from the James Webb Space Telescope, including the sounds of two nebulae and an exoplanet.
Georgina Torbet
webb exoplanet direct detection exo image unlabeled 1

James Webb snapped a picture of an exoplanet for the first time

The James Webb Space Telescope has snapped an image an exoplanet for the first time.
Georgina Torbet
The Phantom Galaxy captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.

The ‘Phantom Galaxy’ looks stunning in this Webb telescope image

The Webb space telescope is continuing to deliver astonishing images of deep space, with this latest one revealing the incredible beauty of the Phantom Galaxy.
Trevor Mogg
Artistic rendition of the exoplanet TOI-1452 b, a small planet that may be entirely covered in a deep ocean.

Intriguing exoplanet could be entirely covered in ocean

Astronomers have discovered an intriguing exoplanet which could be entirely covered in water.
Georgina Torbet
This is an illustration (artist’s impression) showing what the exoplanet WASP-39 b could look like, based on current understanding of the planet.

James Webb spots carbon dioxide in exoplanet atmosphere for first time

Researchers using the James Webb Space Telescope have detected carbon dioxide in an exoplanet atmosphere for the first time.
Georgina Torbet
Jupiter, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope.

This is Jupiter as you’ve never seen it before

The groundbreaking James Webb Space Telescope has produced an extraordinary image of Jupiter using its advanced infrared camera.
Trevor Mogg
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