James Webb Space Telescope

A crowd gathers as Nobel laureate John Mather and Northrop Grumman engineer Scott Willoughby speak in front of a model of NASA's James Webb Space Telescope at South by Southwest on March 9, 2013.

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Who gets to use NASA's James Webb Space Telescope? Astronomers work to fight bias

8:27am January 11, 2022

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

With the James Webb Space Telescope safely deployed, many scientists want to use it. To minimize the effect of unconscious biases, they go through a process developed for the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Technicians lift the mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope using a crane at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., in April 2017. On Saturday, the telescope completed its final deployment in space.

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NASA's James Webb telescope completes its final unfolding in space

3:20pm January 08, 2022

by Deepa Shivaram

Considered the most powerful telescope in space, the James Webb telescope has completed its deployment process. It will still be five months before it will start picking up images.

On Tuesday, engineers successfully finished deploying the James Webb Space Telescope's sunshield, seen here during testing in December 2020 at Northrop Grumman in Redondo Beach, Calif.

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Zero-gravity ballet: James Webb Space Telescope deploys sunshield and mirror

3:07pm January 05, 2022

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope successfully deployed its secondary mirror Wednesday after unfolding its enormous sunshield a day earlier.

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An artist's rendition of the James Webb Space Telescope with its sunshield deployed.

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The James Webb Space Telescope has started unfurling its giant sunshield

5:20pm December 29, 2021

The deployment of the shade on the $10 billion telescope began Tuesday with the successful lowering of two arms known as Unitized Pallet Structures.

The James Webb Space Telescope's primary mirror is illuminated inside a darkened clean room. The entire telescope is now packed inside a rocket, awaiting launch.

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Why some astronomers once feared NASA's James Webb Space Telescope would never launch

5:07pm December 22, 2021

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope is waiting at its launch site, after years of repeated delays and cost overruns. At one point, the giant new observatory was threatened with cancellation.

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The most distant galaxy ever discovered, GN-z11, is shown within a Hubble Space Telescope deep sky survey and highlighted in the inset. This galaxy existed only 400 million years after the Big Bang.

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This new space telescope should show us what the universe looked like as a baby

2:22pm December 17, 2021

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

The upcoming launch of NASA's powerful James Webb Space Telescope should let astronomers see what some of the universe's first stars and galaxies looked like soon after the Big Bang.

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The planet-hunting telescope TESS depicted in front of a lava world orbiting a small red star.

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Astronomers find a new planet that's mostly made of iron

2:15pm December 02, 2021

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

NASA's TESS telescope finds a small, iron-rich planet which could help explain the origins of Mercury, the innermost planet in our solar system

Technicians work on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, which will launch in December. Astronomers say the next big telescope should be designed to search signs of life on planets that orbit distant stars.

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Astronomers want NASA to build a giant space telescope to peer at alien Earths

11:53am November 04, 2021

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

NASA should work toward a new space telescope that could view small planets around distant stars with the potential to host life, expert panel says

NASA's new telescope bears the name of James Webb (center), an influential figure who was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to lead the space agency during the '60s. But some astronomers say discrimination against gay and lesbian government employees

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Shadowed By Controversy, NASA Won't Rename New Space Telescope

11:58am September 30, 2021

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

Some scientists say discrimination against gay and lesbian government employees during James Webb's tenure as NASA administrator should preclude him from having a telescope named in his honor.

An artist's conception of the James Webb Space Telescope after it has unfolded in space.

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NASA's Got A New, Big Telescope. It Could Find Hints Of Life On Far-Flung Planets

6:13pm September 23, 2021

by Nell Greenfieldboyce

The James Webb Space Telescope will let scientists study small, rocky planets around distant stars in more detail than ever before. After decades of work, it could head into orbit later this year.