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James Webb Space Telescope

    How Webb’s Coronagraphs Reveal Exoplanets in the Infrared

    The study of exoplanets is a key part of the James Webb Space Telescope's science goals. We asked Webb's Deputy Observatory Project Scientist Christopher Stark of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to tell us about one of the ways Webb studies other worlds. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has many different observing modes to study …

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    Webb Observes a Globular Cluster Sparkling with Separate Stars

    A rectangular image oriented horizontally appears to be two separate square images with a wide black gap in between. The two squares do not mirror each other exactly or align perfectly together. It looks instead like they are two parts of a larger image that has been obscured in the middle by black strip. Both squares are filled with blue, white, yellow, and red points of light of different size and brightness, most of which are stars. The larger and brighter stars show Webb's distinctive diffraction pattern consisting of eight spikes radiating from the center. Both squares show an increase in density of stars toward the central gap. Altogether, the stars appear to form a loose ball-like shape whose core is obscured by the gap.

    Editor's Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process. On June 20, 2022, the James Webb Space Telescope spent just over one hour staring at Messier 92 (M92), a globular cluster 27,000 light-years away in the Milky Way halo. The observation – among the …

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    Breaking the Tracking Speed Limit With Webb

    In September, the James Webb Space Telescope observed as NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) intentionally smashed a spacecraft into a small asteroid, in the world's first-ever in-space test for planetary defense. Today, we hear from Stefanie Milam, Webb's deputy project scientist for planetary science at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, about how the Webb …

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    Webb’s NIRISS Returns to Full Operations

    In this illustration, the multilayered sunshield on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope stretches out beneath the observatory’s honeycomb mirror

    On Jan. 15, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope's Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) experienced a communications delay within the science instrument, causing its flight software to time out. Following a full investigation by NASA and Canadian Space Agency (CSA) teams, the cause was determined to likely be a galactic cosmic ray, a form …

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    Webb Spies Chariklo Ring System With High-Precision Technique

    Animated GIF showing a star passing behind Chariklo, creating a blip that revealed its rings.

    Editor's Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process. In an observational feat of high precision, scientists used a new technique with NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to capture the shadows of starlight cast by the thin rings of Chariklo. Chariklo is an icy, small …

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    Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph Operations Update

    In this illustration, the multilayered sunshield on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope stretches out beneath the observatory’s honeycomb mirror

    On Sunday, Jan. 15, the James Webb Space Telescope's Near Infrared Imager and Slitless Spectrograph (NIRISS) experienced a communications delay within the instrument, causing its flight software to time out. The instrument is currently unavailable for science observations while NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) work together to determine and correct the root cause of the delay. There …

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    James Webb Space Telescope Operations Update

    In this illustration, the multilayered sunshield on NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope stretches out beneath the observatory’s honeycomb mirror

    The James Webb Space Telescope resumed science operations Dec. 20, after Webb's instruments intermittently went into safe mode beginning Dec. 7 due to a software fault triggered in the attitude control system, which controls the pointing of the observatory. During a safe mode, the observatory's nonessential systems are automatically turned off, placing it in a …

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    Webb Glimpses Field of Extragalactic PEARLS, Studded With Galactic Diamonds

    On a black background, a white border outlines an irregularly shaped, mostly rectangular area. Within the outline lie hundreds of galaxies of various shapes, colors, and sizes. Two white boxes on the left side of the field enclose groups of galaxies. From each box, a line extends out beyond the border of the galaxy field to an enlarged image of the galaxy group, revealing streams of stars and tidal tails. On the right side, a third box encloses a spiral galaxy. A line extends beyond the border of the galaxy field to an enlarged image of the spiral galaxy. A few stars are also scattered across the image. Some have Webb's characteristic 8 diffraction spikes, while others have additional spikes due to a combination of image exposures.

    NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured one of the first medium-deep wide-field images of the cosmos, featuring a region of the sky known as the North Ecliptic Pole. The image, which accompanies a paper published in the Astronomical Journal, is from the Prime Extragalactic Areas for Reionization and Lensing Science (PEARLS) GTO program. "Medium-deep" …

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    NASA’s Webb Reaches New Milestone in Quest for Distant Galaxies

    Infographic of the spectra of four distant galaxies, showing the shift of the location of a spectral feature called the Lyman break, and the relationship between shift and time since the light was emitted, with images for reference.

    Editor's Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process. An international team of astronomers has used data from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope to report the discovery of the earliest galaxies confirmed to date. The light from these galaxies has taken more than 13.4 …

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    Webb, Keck Telescopes Team Up to Track Clouds on Saturn’s Moon Titan

    Editor's Note: This post highlights data from Webb science in progress, which has not yet been through the peer-review process. On the morning of Saturday, Nov. 5, an international team of planetary scientists woke up with great delight to the first Webb images of Saturn's largest moon, Titan. Here, Principal Investigator Conor Nixon and others …

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